(32) Unhappy as the fate of the world might seem, first the Gentiles and then the Jews being consigned to a state of disobedience, this has really had a merciful object in the end. It will lead to a happy and complete reunion, "one flock under one shepherd."

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief.--A weighty sentence embracing the whole course of human history, and summing up the divine philosophy of the whole matter. We might almost take these profound words of St. Paul as a motto for the theological side of the theory of evolution. Severe and rigorous as that doctrine may seem, its goal is perfection, the absolute harmony of all things working in accordance with the divine will. And if an objection is taken on the ground of the waste of individual life, this may be subject to we know not what beneficent rectifications in a sphere removed from that of the senses. We are able to see only a "part of God's ways," and the drift and tendency of visible things makes it not difficult for us to believe that "all things work together for good," even where the process by which they do so is not to be traced by the human eye.

Verse 32. - For God hath concluded them all in (literally, shut them all up into) unbelief (or, disobedience), that he might have mercy upon them all. Chrysostom and other Greek Fathers understood συνέκλεισε το mean only declared them to be unbelieving (or, disobedient), or convicted them of being so. Thus Chrysostom, τουτέστιν ἤλεγξεν, ἔπεδειξεν ἀπειθοῦντας. So, it may be said, must the verb he understood where St. Paul elsewhere uses it with a similar reference in Galatians 3:22, ἡ γραφὴ being there the nominative to the verb. But ὁ Θεὸς being the nominative here, the more obvious meaning seems to be that the shutting up was God's doing. Some, understanding it so, would soften the expression by explaining that God allowed them to become so shut up. Τὸ συνέκλεισε νοητέον ὅτι τοὺς βουληθέντας ἀπειθεῖν εἴασεν ἀπειθεῖν (Diodorus), But we need not shrink from the plain meaning of the expression, viz. that it was God's own act. He is not thus represented as plunging men into inevitable infidelity, having given them no choice. As in the case of the hardening spoken of' above, his dealings are judicial; the state into which. they are now by him shut up has not been undeserved. And, further, his ultimate purpose is here distinctly declared to be one of mercy. The way in which the apostle regards such present judicial dealing as conducive to final mercy appears to be such as this. It is the doctrine of the whole Epistle that salvation is to be attained by man's renouncing his own imagined righteousness, and submitting himself to the righteousness of God. It conduces to this end that his ἀπειθεία should have its course and consequences; so that, conscience being at length awakened, he may long for deliverance from his hopeless state, and appreciate the offered salvation (see ch. 7.). So the Gentile world was long shut up in its self-induced, but also judicial, ἀπειθεία (Romans 1:18, seq.); that, "the wrath of God" being at length revealed to it from heaven, the "righteousness of God" might also be revealed to it and laid hold cf. In like manner God deals now with the Jews, who still persist in going about to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting themselves to the righteousness of God. He shuts them up for the present in their ἀπειθεία, to the end that at length, after their long judgment, and stirred up by the fulness of the Gentiles coming in, they may feel their need, and accept salvation. Τοὺς πάντας in the concluding clause seems to mean generally all mankind, Jews as well as Gentiles; and ἵνα τοὺς πάντας ἐλεήσῃ (as σωθήσεται was understood above with respect to "all Israel," as suggested by the context and the general drift of the chapter) God's embracing all races of mankind at last in the arms of his mercy by calling them into the Church. Thus the latter expression is not in itself adducible in support of the doctrine of universalism. Certainly the prospect of a universal triumph of the gospel before the end rises here before the apostle in prophetic vision; and it may be that it carries with it to his mind further glories of eternal salvation for all, casting their rays backward over all past ages, so as to inspire an unbounded hope. Such a hope, which seems elsewhere intimated (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24-29; Ephesians 1:9, 10, 20-23; Colossians 1:15-20, would justify the glowing rhapsody of admiration and thanksgiving that follows more fully than if we supposed the apostle to contemplate still the eternal perdition of the multitudes who in all the ages have not on earth found mercy.

Parallel Commentaries ...


For
γὰρ (gar)
Conjunction
Strong's 1063: For. A primary particle; properly, assigning a reason.

God
Θεὸς (Theos)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 2316: A deity, especially the supreme Divinity; figuratively, a magistrate; by Hebraism, very.

has consigned
συνέκλεισεν (synekleisen)
Verb - Aorist Indicative Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 4788: To enclose, shut in, make subject to. From sun and kleio; to shut together, i.e. Include or embrace in a common subjection to.

all [men]
πάντας (pantas)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3956: All, the whole, every kind of. Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.

to
εἰς (eis)
Preposition
Strong's 1519: A primary preposition; to or into, of place, time, or purpose; also in adverbial phrases.

disobedience
ἀπείθειαν (apeitheian)
Noun - Accusative Feminine Singular
Strong's 543: Willful unbelief, obstinacy, disobedience. From apeithes; disbelief.

so that
ἵνα (hina)
Conjunction
Strong's 2443: In order that, so that. Probably from the same as the former part of heautou; in order that.

He may have mercy on
ἐλεήσῃ (eleēsē)
Verb - Aorist Subjunctive Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1653: To pity, have mercy on. From eleos; to compassionate.

them all.
πάντας (pantas)
Adjective - Accusative Masculine Plural
Strong's 3956: All, the whole, every kind of. Including all the forms of declension; apparently a primary word; all, any, every, the whole.


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NT Letters: Romans 11:32 For God has shut up all (Rom. Ro)