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.
For God hath shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might shew mercy to all.
Paul closes his long survey of Israel and the nations with one sentence that explains it all. It answers why God set Israel aside, why He brought in the other nations, and on what ground anyone at all is blessed.
One writer sums up where the whole argument lands:
The failure of Jew and Gentile shuts up all the world to the mercy of God.
To be "consigned" here means to be shut in. Older translations read "shut up together in unbelief." No one keeps an exit of his own making. Man's unbelief then becomes God's occasion to give:
God's way of giving His gifts and carrying out His call is to take occasion by man's unbelief to show His mercy. He shuts all up in unbelief so that He may have mercy on all. So the great truth is established that we owe every blessing to the sovereign grace of God.
God tested the two halves of humanity in different ways, and both failed. One had the law and the promises; the other had neither. The verdict fell on both:
So they were all sinners. God dealt with them in holiness and love and truth. This only brought out two things: the stubborn refusal of both Jew and Gentile to submit, and the incomparable mercy of God. Man's claims, righteousness and privileges all ended in unbelief and rebellion. But God never shone out as God more truly than in His mercy that lasts for ever.
The word "all" is not a claim about every person who ever lived. It reaches back to the two groups named just before it. Commentators are firm that stretching it wider breaks the argument:
The application of "mercy upon all" is a complete misapplication. Here is what the apostle is teaching. The Gentiles had no promises, so mercy to them was sovereign mercy. The Jews had broken the law, and they rejected the promises when they rejected Christ, in whom those promises were held. So they too now come under mercy, just like a Gentile — though the promises will still be fulfilled. The "all" in verse 32 refers to the Jews and Gentiles of verses 30 and 31.
Another writer answers the same misuse, and shows where the mercy lands:
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 themselves. But in that way God could show them mercy, once it was clear that it was mercy and nothing else. God will show this mercy in a day that is coming fast, and all Israel will be saved — that is, the nation as such. The words have nothing to do with universal restoration.
Everyone ends up on one ground, and it is not the ground the Jew once stood on:
They rejected the Messiah and hated the good news going out to the Gentiles. This brought out the full measure of their guilt. If God shut all up in unbelief, it was so that He might have mercy on all... Even the Jew, who stood on the principle of righteousness, comes in on the ground of mercy.
The same holds for what is still to come:
You will not find one person in the church above, or in the future kingdom of God on earth, who was not saved as an object of mercy. In both cases the free favour of God reigns in triumph.
The burst of praise that follows this verse is not a change of subject. It is what happens when a person sees a plan no human mind could have designed:
He must show in all His ways that man throughout is a debtor to mercy alone. This is what draws out the apostle's worship as he sees the "riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." The plan is His. Man could never have worked it out this way. Left to himself, he would never take the very place where God's grace still finds him.
And mercy gives more than any claim could ever have won:
On the ground of mercy He can bless in a way and in a measure none of us could ever claim.
- Shut in — The failure of Jew and Gentile shuts the whole world up to the mercy of God. Nobody has an exit of his own.
- Shut in, so that — God uses man's unbelief as His occasion to show mercy. The prison exists for the sake of the gift.
- Mercy to both — The "all" covers the two groups of verses 30 and 31: Jew and Gentile. Commentators reject reading it as universal restoration.
- Mercy on one footing — The Jew who once stood on righteousness now comes in as a Gentile does. No one in heaven or in the coming kingdom will be there on any other ground.
- Mercy beyond claim — On this ground God blesses beyond anything anyone could claim. So Paul ends not in argument but in worship.
O depth of riches both of [the] wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!
Paul has just traced God's dealings with Israel and the nations. At the end of it he stops arguing and breaks into praise. His words raise a question every believer meets sooner or later. If we cannot trace God's ways, what do we do with the parts of His plan we cannot follow?
The praise comes from watching God turn human failure into the means of blessing.
God works out His sovereign purposes of blessing not only despite man's failure, but through that very failure. So we can only say, "O the depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God." His judgments on man's failure, and His ways in carrying out His purposes to bless men, both make plain that there are depths of riches in His wisdom and knowledge that are unsearchable, and so past man's finding out. If we are to know them at all, it can only be by revelation, and by His carrying out His judgments and ways with men.
One commentator defines wisdom here and shows where the difficulty really lies. He quotes an older translation of the verse.
The apostle's heart is moved as he watches this wonderful unfolding of God's working, and he has to break out into this note of praise: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Wisdom is the resource to carry out every detail of what God has planned. "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out!" That is what baffled Job's friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar; to them the ways of God really were unsearchable and past finding out. When the apostle says the same thing here, he means the realm of human reasoning, as his next words show.
The verse calls God's ways inscrutable; older translations read "past finding out." One writer says our translations soften the word.
"Unsearchable" in our translation does not convey the idea; it is that of which there is no trace. The same word (Rom. 11:33) is rendered "past finding out." Both cases point to this revealed mystery. I believe the Spirit means them to show us that there was no trace of it, and no clue to it, until God revealed it.
Before anyone could enter these depths, something had to happen first.
From eternity God had in His heart thoughts of love and glory; thoughts of blessing that He did not reveal until this present age... But before we could know these precious things and enter into them, the depths of God's mercy had to be seen at the cross. There Jesus suffered. Because He has died, we can be set free inwardly from all that is shallow and casual, and enter by the power of the Spirit into the enjoyment of the "depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God."
If the most gifted apostle ended in worship, no one else can claim to have it all worked out.
No one, however well taught by the Spirit, claims to understand all of Scripture, or to be able to clear up every difficulty that comes up. Even the most gifted apostle, looking at how God acts through the ages, speaks instead in a spirit of worship... For any of us to think we can take in all the mysteries of divine truth would only be the clearest proof of our ignorance.
Commenting on Job, another writer shows where that leaves someone who argues with God.
So long as a soul raises a question against the character of God, he is in no state to have his difficulties met... The soul must find its rest in God, not in our reasonings.
The verse describes the present, not the final state of things.
Right now God is acting behind the scenes, and we cannot see past the curtain. But when He brings His judgments into the light of day, the mystery will vanish and be over... and the rightness of all His dealings through the ages will be clear.
- Depth — the cry rises from seeing God work out His purposes through human failure, not just despite it.
- Riches — wisdom here is the resource to carry out every detail of what God has planned; He has both the plan and the means.
- No trace — "unsearchable" and "past finding out" mean there was no clue to be had until God revealed it.
- Opened — these depths are entered only because Christ died; the depth of mercy at the cross is the way in.
- Answered — worship, not argument, is the honest response now; a day is coming when the rightness of all His dealings will be clear.
For who has known [the] mind of [the] Lord, or who has been his counsellor?
The verse asks two questions that sound like a challenge, and both expect the same answer: nobody. They close Paul's long account of God's dealings with Israel and the nations. There, reasoning gives way to praise.
The two questions sit inside a burst of praise. One writer shows what shaped that praise.
The praises of the saints vary in character according to the subject that fills the soul… In Romans 11:33 the Spirit has reviewed the whole range of the relations between men — Jew or Gentile — and God. He has shown that the abounding of sin brought out the far greater abounding of grace. After that, the apostle's expression of glory takes another character.
The first question is not a puzzle but a closed door. It also shapes how we picture God at work in history.
The Creator can learn nothing from His creation. The universe is the conception of His infinite mind, and it is impossible that He could receive any instruction from it… He has not, as some suppose, been doing the best He can from the outset. He has not been fighting off the inroads of evil, meeting the opposing power as well as He is able, and always improving on the past as intelligence grows.
No one has ever sat down with God to plan. Yet the same word comes back on the lips of Christ, and the reversal is worth noticing.
It is a blessing to become better acquainted with God's purposes and counsels, and to learn His sovereignty as well as His ways. How striking it is to read in this context: "who has been His counselor?" Our Lord uses the same word as a verb in Revelation 3:18, where He counsels us! Should we then not listen?
Paul has just called God's judgments unsearchable. The question about knowing His mind shows in what sense. One writer points to the only way any of it becomes known.
The judgments of God deal with man's failure. The ways of God carry out His purposes for the blessing of men. Both make it clear that there are depths of riches in His wisdom and knowledge that are unsearchable, and so past finding out by man. If they are to be known, in any measure, it can only be by revelation, and in the practical working out of His judgments and His ways with men.
One writer points to Scripture's own answer to this question. No one advised God — yet He does not hide His mind from His people.
There are the ways of God, and there are the acts and works of God. These last lead to the knowledge of what God is afterwards, as His works of course must. But in the knowledge of His ways, the secret of His mind is known, revealed in communion. So it is said of the saints, "Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? But we have the mind of Christ." Christ is the key to all.
If nobody briefed God, nobody can claim credit for the outcome. That is the practical edge of the question in a chapter about God's grace to Jew and Gentile alike.
Here we see the triumph of grace, and all boasting is taken from men. It is of God from first to last, and He must have all praise.
- No counsel taken. Nobody ever sat in on God's planning. The Creator can learn nothing from His creation.
- No counsel owed. Because no one advised Him, no one holds a claim on Him. Grace strips away our boasting and traces every blessing back to God.
- Counsel hidden. Human reasoning cannot find out God's judgments and ways. We know them only as He reveals them.
- Counsel revealed. Paul's question gets its answer elsewhere in Scripture: "we have the mind of Christ." Communion opens the secret of His mind.
- Counsel offered. The word for "counselor" returns in Christ's own promise to counsel us. The God no one could advise now advises His people. So listen.
or who has first given to him, and it shall be rendered to him?
Paul has just traced God's dealings with Israel and the nations to one end: mercy for both. Now comes the third of three questions. It shuts the last door by which anyone might approach God as a creditor rather than a receiver.
This question is not cold logic. It comes from a heart looking back over God's mercy.
This burst of praise fits the letter in a remarkable way, and it stands exactly where it belongs. Here is the admiration of his soul as he looks back on the triumphs of God's mercy. It is the last thing a man would think of when discussing God's ways of dealing with the world. We can see, feel and prove the depth of His wealth, wisdom and knowledge, yet never reach the bottom of it. No one can examine His decisions or trace out His ways... Who then has given to God and made Him a debtor to repay? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things: to Him be the glory for ever.
Older translations read, "who has first given to him," and the force lies in that word "first." A gift that starts with the creature would put God under obligation to pay it back. That has never happened.
We have not known His mind, nor had anything to do with His counsel. Still less have we given to Him first, so that He should owe us repayment. This has been Israel's folly, and the folly of how many more who would love to make themselves creditors of God, as though their good works and assumed righteousness were a claim upon Him! Elihu asked Job well: "If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand?" (Job 35:7).
Paul did not invent the challenge. He has quoted the Old Testament again and again through these three chapters, and he closes them with a prophet's words.
The Spirit guides his thoughts, and they still run in the line of that prophet of good news. So he takes up Isaiah's words as the Greek Old Testament gives them, and asks with boldness: "Who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counsellor? or who has first given to Him, and it shall be repaid to him again?" (See Isaiah 40:13-14.) These are questions worth asking... How small man appears! God works for His own glory.
Behind the question stands a truth about God Himself. He is not a learner, and no one is helping Him along.
The Creator can learn nothing from His creation. The universe came out of His infinite mind, and it can teach Him nothing... He has not, as some suppose, been doing the best He can from the start. He has not been struggling against the spread of evil, meeting the opposing power as well as He is able, and always improving on the past as knowledge grows.
If no one has given to God first, every claim men press on Him is wasted work. Yet men keep pressing the claim.
We must always keep in mind that God will be no man's debtor, since "He gives to all life and breath and all things" (Acts 17:25). Man's constant effort is to make God his debtor. The effort is completely fruitless, and whoever keeps at it will find himself at odds with God. Only one thing can settle the question between God and man: man must become the receiver and the debtor. Until he does, he must remain at a distance from God.
The verse does not shut down giving. It settles who gives first, and it changes the spirit in which we bring anything to God.
God can accept the smallest gift from a heart that has learned the deep truth in those words, "Of your own have we given you." But the moment a man takes the place of the "first" giver, God's reply is, "If I were hungry, I would not tell you"... The great Giver of "all things" cannot "need anything." Praise is all that we can offer to God. And we can offer it only when we know clearly and fully that our sins are all put away.
- No counsel. No one has known God's mind or advised Him; the plan of mercy for Jew and Gentile came from Him alone.
- No gift first. "First" is the key word — nobody has handed God anything that He must pay back, so no good works form a claim.
- No debtor. God will be no man's debtor. The question is settled only when man takes the place of the receiver. Until then he stays at a distance.
- Only mercy. What man cannot earn, God gives. Blessing rests on His mercy, not on what Israel or anyone else deserves.
- All glory. All things are of Him, through Him, and to Him. So the right answer is not a bill, but praise from hearts that know their sins are put away.
For of him, and through him, and for him [are] all things to him be glory for ever. Amen.
Paul's long argument about Israel and the nations does not end with a conclusion. It ends in praise, and this verse is the last line of it. Three short phrases about God take in all things, and then hand Him the glory.
The praise is not a change of subject. It grows out of verse 32: God has consigned all to disobedience, so that He may have mercy on all. One writer notes that Paul had received that mercy himself.
No wonder the apostle closes this most precious portion of Scripture with the delightful doxology of verses 33-36!… Paul (as Saul) had himself been marked by this callous "ignorance" (1 Timothy 1:13) and "unbelief." God had shown him mercy, and so he says in triumph of his nation: "God has shut up all together in unbelief, in order that He might show mercy to all."
The writer here quotes an older translation of verse 32; the ESV reads "God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all."
The three little words — "of," "through," "to" — are not repetition. Each marks a different relation between God and everything that exists. Together they leave no room for anyone else.
He is the source, means, and end of all He has counselled, accomplished, or purposes still to effect for His own glory.
The verse begins with "For." It answers the two questions just asked: who advised God, and who gave to Him first?
We have neither known His mind, nor had anything to do with His counsel. Still less have we given to Him first, so that He would owe us repayment. This has been Israel's folly, and the folly of many more who would like to make themselves creditors of God, as though their good works and assumed righteousness were a claim upon Him!
Another writer states it as a rule that never runs the other way.
Man would like to make God a receiver instead of a giver; but this cannot be… The great Giver of "all things" cannot possibly "need anything."
The scope reaches far past Israel's story. Commentators read the three phrases differently. Kelly applies all three to God; another writer sees distinct divine Persons at work in them.
As Paul sums it up he says "of Him" — God is the source. "Through Him" — Christ is the agent. "To Him" — Christ is the One whose power will secure it all. This is the working of divine Persons in this wonderful field of wisdom, far beyond human understanding… It is not only about our blessing and the blessing of Israel; the end of it all will be openly displayed — "To Him be glory forever. Amen."
If everything starts with God, runs through God, and ends in God, then no one else can take the credit.
Here we see the triumph of grace, and all boasting is taken from men. It is of God from first to last, and He must have all praise.
What is left is the glory, and the "Amen" that agrees with it. Every reader can say that Amen too.
He starts all things, carries them out, and is their eternal Master. Who would proudly dare to seize these great rights of His? Ah no! He stands alone — perfect in wise counsels, perfect in work, perfect in mastery of all things. "To Him be glory forever." "And let all the people say, Amen."
- Of Him — God is the source. Every blessing starts on His side; no one advised Him and no one funded Him.
- Through Him — God is the means. Christ is the agent who carries out what God planned.
- To Him — God is the end. Everything is heading to His glory, and one day that will be on open display.
- Mercy — the praise grows out of mercy shown to unbelievers: first to Paul, then to all.
- Amen — since it is all of God from first to last, boasting is gone and praise is the only fitting reply.