For as indeed *ye* [also] once have not believed in God, but now have been objects of mercy through the unbelief of *these*;
Paul is speaking to the non-Jewish believers in Rome. He reminds them how they came into blessing at all. Their standing rests on mercy, and that mercy reached them through another people's failure.
Commentators differ over the key word here. Some translate it as disobedience, others as unbelief. Kelly's rendering sets verses 30 and 31 side by side.
"For as you were once disobedient to God but now have become objects of mercy through their disobedience, so they also have now become disobedient to the mercy shown to you, so that they also may become objects of mercy." (Verses 30, 31.)
These readers had no claim to bring. One writer traces that back to a principle about God Himself.
The literal reading of verses 30 and 31 is important. It is very wonderful, and shows the principle — He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. 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, and lost all their privileges through unbelief, so that God might at last save them as a whole nation, but as objects of mercy.
Mercy reached the nations by way of Israel's refusal. Commentators see God's wisdom in that arrangement, not an accident of history.
So the Spirit of God shows the wonderful moral wisdom of God in these plans. The Gentiles had long been unbelieving, so now it was pure mercy to them. The Jews had rejected this mercy shown to the Gentiles, and were themselves in unbelief, so it had now become pure mercy to them too... The Jews had promises, and if they had received Christ, faithfulness would have fulfilled those promises in Him... But the Jews rejected Christ, and so came under mercy like the Gentiles.
So no Gentile reader can treat his place as an achievement or a birthright.
First, God brings Gentiles — outsiders, without God and without hope in the world — into this mercy in a wonderful way, through the very unbelief of Israel. Let Gentiles learn well from this that they are only a second choice, having never been the chosen people of God. This dismisses all high thinking. God has conquered them by mercy.
Some read the next verse to mean that believing Gentiles will be the means of Israel's recovery. Kelly rejects that, pointing to the aim of the passage and to the warning given to the Gentiles.
The express point is to crush all conceit in both Jew and Gentile, and above all in the Gentile, who now enjoys light while the Jew sits under a dark and cold eclipse. Nowhere does Scripture hint that the mercy shown to the Gentiles is the means (or a means) of Israel's recovery... The Gentiles were warned that they must be cut off if they did not continue in God's goodness, so their sentence is to be cut off, not the honour of bringing Israel into the faith.
Both sides end in the same place.
God's way in giving His gifts and carrying out His call is to use man's unbelief as the occasion to show His mercy. He shuts all up in unbelief so that He may have mercy on all. So the great truth stands: we owe all blessing to the sovereign grace of God.
This mercy is not just doctrine. It shapes what a believer does with his own body.
If the Gentile Christians at Rome were justified and saved, it was through the mercy of God (see Rom. 11:30). It was so likewise with any Jews there. It was all the mercy of God. God will receive the nation back at last on the ground of mercy, after the Gentiles have turned away. Because of the tender mercies of God, we are to give up our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service.
- Cause: disobedience. Paul names their past first — they were "at one time disobedient to God" — so nothing in them explains what follows.
- Gift: mercy. They had no claim to salvation. They were dead in sins and unbelief. What they received was pure mercy: God has mercy on whom He will.
- Route: their disobedience. Mercy reached the nations through Israel's rejection of Christ. Commentators read this as God's wisdom, not an accident.
- Reach: all. God shuts up all in unbelief so that mercy may go out to all, Jew and Gentile alike, on one and the same footing.
- Result: no boasting, but a living sacrifice. The passage exists to crush conceit in both Jew and Gentile. The mercy that saved becomes the reason to give the body to God.
so these also have now not believed in your mercy, in order that *they* also may be objects of mercy.
God has not written off Israel, and here Paul shows how Jew and Gentile end up in the same place. Everything turns on one short phrase — "by the mercy shown to you" — and how it links to the rest of the sentence.
Older English versions made the Gentiles' mercy the channel by which God saves Israel. One commentator calls that a mistranslation. In his reading Israel disbelieved the mercy going out to the nations.
This says that the Jews as a nation will receive mercy through the Gentiles' mercy. No doubt that is what the translators thought. But it is a mistranslation... "These have now disbelieved the mercy shown to you Gentiles, so that they too might be brought in on terms of mercy." The promises had belonged to the Jews. But they forbade anyone to speak to the Gentiles so that they might be saved, and so filled up their sins... God shut up all in unbelief: the Gentiles by nature, the Jews now in His wise ordering of the ages. So both might come in on the same terms of mercy.
Another writer weighs that older reading against the chapter, its context, and the rest of Scripture.
It clashes with the chapter, because the earlier argument treats the restoring of the Jews as life from the dead for the world. It does not make the full number of the Gentiles the means of restoring them. It clashes with the context, because the whole point here is to crush all pride in both Jew and Gentile... It clashes with Scripture as a whole, because nowhere does Scripture hint that the mercy shown to the Gentiles is the means of Israel's recovery.
Their unbelief had a target. They turned down the very mercy God was sending out to the nations.
As a nation the Jews rejected the Gospel just because it was mercy, sent especially to the Gentiles (Acts 22:21-22 shows this). In the end they will be deeply humbled. They will receive blessing on the same ground as the Gentile they had scorned as a dog.
Israel held the promises. That is what makes their position so striking once they refused them in the Son who came to fulfil them.
But Israel would not believe. They refused the fulfilment of God's promise when He sent them His beloved Son. What claim can they dare to make now? The promises really were theirs. But since they refused them so proudly, it is plain that to receive them now they too must become mere "objects of mercy."... So the mercy given to the Gentiles is a lesson in humbling for Israel. It puts them on the same level.
The apostle's answer to all this is worship, not analysis. God kept His promise and still brought Israel in on mercy alone:
This is what makes the apostle cry out at the depth of God's wisdom. The rejection of the Jews brought mercy to the Gentiles. And since they rejected Christ in unbelief, it brought the Jews in on the footing of mere mercy too. Yet God only showed Himself all the more true to His promise, which He carries out despite everything.
Some use this talk of mercy for all to argue that everyone will be saved in the end. One writer answers that the mercy in view here is for Israel as a nation.
The Jews refused a mercy that took up Gentiles. So they lost all claim on God, and became objects of mere mercy just as much as the Gentiles. But this is how God could show them mercy — once it was clear that mercy was all it was. He will show this mercy in a day that is coming fast, and all Israel will be saved, that is, the nation itself. The words have nothing to do with universal restoration.
The same ground holds for everyone God blesses, now and in the age to come.
The Gentiles had no claim to salvation. They were dead in sins and in unbelief. God showed them pure mercy. Israel would not believe such mercy, and lost all their privileges through unbelief. So God will at last save them as a whole nation, but as objects of mercy... In the church above and in the future kingdom of God on earth, not one will be found who has not been saved as an object of mercy.
- Refused. Israel did not just miss the gospel. They disbelieved the mercy going out to the nations, and that refusal filled up their sins.
- Levelled. They rejected the promises in Christ. So the people who held every privilege now stand where the outsider stands.
- Mercy. Only one ground of blessing is left for either side — not claim, not promise held onto, but sheer mercy.
- Kept. God does not break His word to Israel. He keeps it, and still brings the heirs of promise in by mercy alone. That depth of wisdom makes the apostle break into praise.
- Bounded. Mercy for "all" means the Jews and Gentiles in view here. Writers read it as Israel's coming national salvation, not the salvation of every person.