"As concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." Romans 28v29
Paul now brings to bear on the whole discussion the most important aspect of biblical revelation; namely the character of God. The Bible is a revelation of God and in all our studies we must ever keep this fundamental principle in mind. Paul will arrive at this thought at the end of chapter 11, but he begins the subject here, the fact that God is different from anyone else in existence. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55v8-9 In these verses Paul is stating that God can at the same time love and hate the same people. This is something we humans cannot do. God's attitude towards people and nations are without emotion and without any external influence whatsoever. He acts in accordance with His eternal and perfect judgement and unlike us is not dependent on other considerations. In this verse Paul states that the same God who loved the people of Israel now counts them as His enemies. Concerning the gospel, they are enemies; concerning His sovereign election of them, they are beloved. They are enemies and friends at one in the same time. This is the character of God. Judicially, He has for a time, and for a very definite purpose, constituted Israel as His enemies today. In line with His electing grace, He will restore them in the future. In the process of this He will bring great blessing to all the nations of the world. God's election of Israel in the past was never an act of favoritism towards one nation, and to the exclusion of others. It was simply that they became an instrument in the hand of God to achieve His purposes, which were always to do with global blessing.
Paul opens in verse 26 with the phrase "as concerning the gospel." The gospel is the greatest revelation of God that has ever come. In the past He revealed His majesty in creation; through His dealings with Israel he revealed to the world His awesome power; through the same nation He revealed His inflexible righteousness; but in the gospel He reveals His eternal love and mercy and grace. Israel has rejected this, they have turned away from the greatest revelation of God ever. They persist in promoting their own ways, when God says those ways, even religious ways, will lead to destruction. They are not in line with Divine thinking and God has constituted them for the time being as enemies. Paul accused his own people of preaching "another gospel." In Galatians 1v7-8 he accuses some of the Jewish people of perverting the gospel of Christ and he answers thus "though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." Judaism became the enemy of Christianity wherever the gospel went and Paul writes to the Colossians, who had come under Jewish influence saying this "let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of Sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." Colossians 2v16-17
At one in the same time despite Jewish opposition to the gospel, God has in mind the covenant that he swore to the Jewish fathers; Deuteronomy 10v14-15 "Behold the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the Lord's thy God, the earth also with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all people as it is to this day." When God decides to bless a people, He may bring them under severe discipline for a time, but He will never never, go back on His word. Even the prophet Balaam was aware of this aspect of the character of God. In his dealings with Balak king of Moab, who tried to get him to curse Israel said these now famous words "Hearken unto me thou son of Zippor; God is not a man that he should lie; neither the Son of Man that He should repent (change His mind) ; hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken and shall He not make it good? Behold I have received commandment to bless; and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it." Numbers 23v18-20 This from a foreign prophet who understood the ways of God. This is what Paul means when he says in verse 29 "For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (change of mind).
Many hundreds of years ago, God decided to bless Israel, to use them as an instrument in His hand to bring His revelation to the world. Despite their present deviations from the ways of God, He will hold good to His promise and He will restore Israel when the time is right. We must note therefore, that the ways of God are independent of time. This aspect of the character of God, as revealed through His dealings with Israel, should be a comfort to all of us who have placed our faith in the living God that He will never go back on His word. Put your trust in Jesus Christ today and he will honour that trust for all eternity. Paul continues to expound the wondrous ways of God in the blessing of mankind.
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