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.