- Sic et ii nunc increduli facti sunt, eo quod
adepti estis misericordiam, ut ipsi quoque
misericordiam consequantur.^367 - Even so have these also now not believed,
that through your mercy they also may obtain
mercy. - Concludit enim Deus omnes sub
incredulitate, ut omnium misereatur. - For God hath concluded them all in
unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
28.With regard indeed to the gospel, etc. He shows that the worst thing in the Jews ought not
to subject them to the contempt of the Gentiles. Their chief crime was unbelief: but Paul teaches
us, that they were thus blinded for a time by God’s providence, that a way to the gospel might be
made for the Gentiles;^368 and that still they were not for ever excluded from the favor of God. He
then admits, that they were for the present alienated from God on account of the gospel, that thus
the salvation, which at first was deposited with them, might come to the Gentiles; and yet that God
was not unmindful of the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and by which he testified
that according to his eternal purpose he loved that nation: and this he confirms by this remarkable
declaration, — that the grace of the divine calling cannot be made void; for this is the import of
the words, —
29.The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. He has mentioned gifts and calling;
which are to be understood, according to a figure in grammar,^369 as meaning the gift of calling:
and this is not to be taken for any sort of calling but of that, by which God had adopted the posterity
of Abraham into covenant; since this is especially the subject here, as he has previously, by the
word, election, designated the secret purpose of God, by which he had formerly made a distinction
between the Jews and the Gentiles.^370 For we must bear this in mind, — that he speaks not now of
(^367) Our common version departs here from the original by connecting “your mercy” with the last clause. Calvin keeps the
proper order of the words, though he paraphrases them, μ , “eo quod adepti estis misericordiam.” They might have been
rendered, “through your mercy,” that is, the mercy shown to you, or the mercy of which you are the objects. — Ed.
(^368) They were “enemies” to Paul and the Church, say Grotius and Luther, — to the gospel, says Pareus, — to God, says Mede
and Stuart. The parallel in the next clause, “beloved,” favors the last sentiment. They were become God’s enemies, and alienated
through their rejection of the gospel; but they were still regarded as descendants of the Fathers and in some sense on their account
“beloved,” as those for whom God entertained love, inasmuch as his “gifts and calling” made in their behalf, were still in force
and never to be changed. — Ed.
(^369) Hypallage — transposition, a change in the arrangement of a sentence.
(^370) It is not desirable to amalgamate words in this manner; nor is it necessary. The Apostle ascends; he mentions first the “gifts,”
the free promises which God made to the Jews; and then he refers to the origin of them, the calling or the election of God, and
says that both are irreversible, or, as Castellio well explains the word μ μ , irrevocable. See a similar instance in Romans
13:13
Calvin seems to regard “the gifts and calling” as having reference to the adoption of the Jewish nation, and their adoption
to certain privileges included in the Abrahamic covenant, probably those mentioned in Romans 9:4. But Pareus, Mede, and
others, extend the meaning farther, and consider “the gifts” as including those of “faith, remission of sins, sanctification,
perseverance and salvation;” and they understand by “calling,” not the external, which often fails, but the internal, made by the
Spirit, and every efficacious, of which the Apostle had spoken, when he said, “Those whom he has predestinated, he has called,
justified, and glorified.” According to this view the Apostle must be considered to mean, that according to what is said in Romans
11:5, the gifts and callings of God shall be effectual towards some of the Jews throughout all ages, and towards the whole nation,
when the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in; or, that though they may be suspended, they shall yet be made evident at the
appointed time; so that what secures and renders certain the restoration of the Jews is the covenant of free grace which God
made with their fathers.
Some, as Pareus informs us, have concluded from what is here said, that no Gentile nation, once favored with “the gifts
and calling of God,” shall be wholly forsaken; and that though religion may for a long season be in a degenerated state, God
will yet, in his own appointed time, renew his gifts and his calling, and restore true religion. The ground of hope is the irrevocability
of his gifts and calling. — Ed.