Romans 11:27

As touching the gospel, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sake: For the gifts and calling of God are not repented of.

Who are these designated here as "enemies for your sake"? Their identity is clear from the last clause of the preceding verse, where the portion of Jacob whose sins were forgiven, and who had turned away from transgression, are the ones spoken of, making them the subject of this verse. At first, we are shocked that the true Israel (the redeemed portion of Jacob) should here be called "enemies." How is this true? Just as Christians on both sides of nations at war are technically enemies, so it is here. Part of the true Israel, through birth and environment, was then and continues to be, commingled with the old Israel. There are some of every generation of fleshly Israel that fall into this category. But within that environment, they are environmentally enemies of the truth, having been identified with the enemies of the gospel from birth, and afterward, by upbringing and education; but, despite this, there are some of that old Israel in every generation who are of the true Israel, who are of "the election" and the "righteous remnant" and therefore beloved "for the fathers' sake" and being the true seed of Abraham, no less than Christians from among the Gentiles; but they become so only by obeying the gospel. They, upon their acceptance of the gospel, claim the inheritance that is theirs as "children of the promise." God has not abrogated his promise to THAT Israel. The true Israel has been separated from the fleshly Israel, but the inalienable right of every soul born into this world to decide which way his soul shall go, whether or not he will be of the true Israel, is not contravened. The physical descendants of Abraham in the national entity known as Israel, or scattered throughout earth's populations, AS INDIVIDUALS are not lost and doomed through the accident of their birth, any more than others, the final right of choice still belonging to every man alive.

Some of the old Israel are still being saved, the same as in Paul's day, and the same as in Elijah's day. Therefore no fatalism is taught in the revelation here regarding the hardening of fleshly Israel.

To clear up any confusion, the separation of the two Israels which came about in the events connected with the rise of Christianity, simply reversed the situation that had existed prior to the first advent of Christ. In those days the Gentiles were hardened, and the Jews were the covenant people; but, even under that condition, INDIVIDUAL Gentiles now and again forsook the wickedness of their world and were received into the true spiritual seed of Abraham, Ruth the Moabitess being a conspicuous example. Now, the opposite situation prevails, and again and again, INDIVIDUAL Jews accept the Lord and claim their rightful inheritance as true Sons of Abraham in Christ. The hardening of the Jewish institution has not affected the sovereign right of any man, Jew or Gentile, to obey the gospel and be saved. That the earthly organization called Jewry, and including the state of Israel, shall ever be saved AS SUCH, in the light of the scriptures, appears to be an absolute impossibility, in the same way that it was impossible under reverse conditions before Christ for any state like Babylon or Rome to be accepted AS SUCH into the benefits of Gods' redeeming covenant.

"For the gifts and calling of God are not repented of ..." The gifts and calling of God are the great promise of God to Abraham that in him "all the families" of the earth shall be blessed with eternal life, such promise never having been confined to Abraham's fleshly posterity alone, and never having included all of them, but only that portion of them who were Abraham's kind of faithful obedient people, the "spiritual seed" as they are called (fully expounded in Romans 9).

But the institution, or establishment, of Israel flatly rejected any thought that God's blessing should be extended to Gentiles; and the very mention of God's will in that regard precipitated the great riot in the temple which led to Paul's imprisonment, the enraged Israelites crying that "It is not fit that he (Paul) should live" (Acts 22:22). The establishment had not merely murdered the Christ and suborned lying witnesses to deny the resurrection, they launched a campaign of eradication directed at the entire following of Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen to death, plotted to kill Paul, and sought by every possible means to thwart the preaching of the gospel on the mission field, Paul himself being on precisely that kind of mission of destruction when he was converted. If the hardened Israel, therefore, had had their way, God's great promise would have failed. This great clause is an affirmation that it did not fail. God did not repent of his purpose, merely because people did not agree with it.

What a glorious onward thrust of God's will is envisioned by Paul in these words! The whole nation of Israel might oppose it; but the will of God moved inexorably to the achievement of the divine purpose.