What does it mean that the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:29)?

Hence the apostle goes on to affirm what is wholly different from the gospel and church state. "According to the gospel, [they are] enemies on your account; but according to the election, beloved on account of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God [are] irrevocable." (Ver. 28, 29.) The meaning is that, after the Jews proved their hostility to the gospel instead of being saved by it, which God turns, as we have seen, to His gracious call of the Gentiles meanwhile, election love will still prove faithful in the latter day 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. There is no difference. All are alike guilty and lost through their sins; all alike forgiven and saved through faith. But after the actual unbelief of the Jews, sovereign mercy will interpose at the end of the age. For the gifts and the calling of God admit of no regret on His part. He may repent of creation (Gen. 6), never of what grace gave in promise to Abraham and to his seed, never of His call which was first illustrated publicly in the father of the faithful. According to that "election" He will yet break their stony heart and put a new spirit within them.

"For as ye were once disobedient to God but now have become objects of mercy through their disobedience, so have they also now become disobedient to the mercy shown to you, in order that they also may become objects of mercy. For God shut up together all in disobedience in order that he might show mercy to all." (Verses 30-32.)

Verse 29. “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” He never changes. Not one jot or tittle of His word can fail. The literal translation of verses 30-31 is important. “For as indeed ye [also] once have not believed in God, but now have been objects of mercy, through the unbelief of these; so these also have now not believed in your mercy, in order that they also may be objects of mercy.” This is very wonderful, and shows out 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 forfeited all their privileges through unbelief, that so God might at last save them as a whole nation, but as objects of mercy. “For God has shut up together all in unbelief, in order that he might show mercy to all.” “O the depth of the riches,” etc. Not one shall he found in the church above or in the future kingdom of God on earth, but what has been saved as an object of mercy. The free favour of God in both cases thus reigns triumphant.

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. It is always important to consider the context of every passage of the word of God, and not to force it out of the situation where God has placed it.

No doubt the guilt of Israel was inexcusable and shameless, but God has not for ever cast off His people whom He foreknew; He may be indignant, but always has pity for them; and He is looking onward to the day when He will gather Israel out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Whatever God gives, He stands to it; and sooner or later, when the day comes for His grace to work according to His promise, His call will indeed be effectual. The Jews are enemies now as regards the gospel, and grace brings Gentiles meanwhile to God. But as regards election, they are beloved on account of the fathers. For as the Gentiles once were disobedient to God but now become objects of mercy through Jewish unbelief, even so these were disobedient to your mercy, that they also may become objects of mercy. For God shut up all unto disobedience that He might have mercy on them all. And so, when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, all Israel shall be saved {Rom. 11:26}. There ought to be no doubt that their call was from God and in the end sure. Every Christian knows it for himself and for the church; but he ought in no way to question it for the Jew. Rom. 11:29 is said by the apostle himself expressly about Israel, though the principle is no less true of ourselves, who should never forget His people, and God's mercy yet in store for them.

We might finish our brief history by calling attention to the fact that the nation of Israel is still loved by God. “As touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:28-29); that is to say, God will not repent or change His mind as to Israel's call, and the gifts He has given to that favoured nation.

Thus the emphasis on "Ye" is exceedingly cheering and establishing: to be told that they distinctively were "of God" in the sense of His being the source of all their blessing. Also, 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 creation (Gen. 6:6), as we are told; and He destroyed it. That was not a gift; but simply an act however immense. But when in sovereign love He calls to Himself poor guilty men to make them His own, when He makes a gift of eternal life, for instance, or forgiveness of our sins, or the place of a child, such boons are the gifts and calling of God; and they are without repentance. Here His mind never changes. The children may be too often foolish and sadly wrong, but He does not change.

So the Lord "repented" of the proposed evil, and this statement does not in any way clash with Romans 11:29, but rather confirms it. 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 ultimately 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. Similarly here, He tested Moses by this proposal, so attractive to a self-seeking mind, and the test completed, He turned from the proposal and reverted to the ancient covenant which was the expression of His purpose.

"The gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Rom. 11:29),

that is to say that God will never change His mind, and withdraw any gift He gives, or calling He makes. When God gives a gift, or makes a calling, He never withdraws His bounty. So it is with the gift of the Spirit of God. Once given it is never withdrawn.

The grace of God has given every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ a perfect position in Christ before Him—a position which once given, is never withdrawn. “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom. 11:29), that is, without change of mind on His part; so that, once given, they are never recalled.

Moreover, he thereby becomes "fallen from grace" as verse 4 says. He takes up a ground before God which practically makes Christ of no effect to him. The words "fallen from grace" are sometimes wrongly used as though they meant that a believer who once stood in the grace of God has now been ejected from it by God because of his bad behaviour. The point of the passage is rather that anyone who has once taken up his position before God in grace, as these Galatians had, and then abandons it in his own mind and consciousness for law has had a bad fall. To step off the grace platform on to the law platform — if we may so speak — involves a descent that amounts to a fall, for the one is far lower than the other. In the case of a true believer being entangled thus, the fall, we repeat, is in his own mind and consciousness. God's grace and the relationship established by grace remain the same, for "the gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. 11:29).