Dear Friends,

 Paul’s startling affirmation that a class of people exist whom he describes as both beloved of God and enemies of the gospel startles many contemporary Christians who, often despite thinking they believe in God’s grace, have embraced a mixed and often confused—and confusing—theology that cannot eliminate human participation of some kind and degree from God’s saving work.  They “front load” their belief with the idea that God either will not or cannot save anyone apart from some form of active participation from that person.  In this mixed belief eternal life is contingent on some element of human synergy.  Others strongly reject the “front-loaded” idea of the human factor in the initial work of new birth and eternal redemption, but then they “back load” their beliefs of eternal security with various forms of performance based human conduct, typically warning their hearers with “Unless you ____(You can fill in the blank with various measures of minimal human performance) ___ then I can’t assure you that you are one of God’s elect.”  When confronted with such passages as the verses we’re presently studying from the eleventh chapter of Romans, neither of these beliefs can offer an explanation that matches Paul’s inspired context and makes any reasonable sense at all.  Those who embrace this second error typically morph God’s Biblical promise to “preserve” His beloved children in His tender and unchanging love ( Romans 8:38-39 ) into a non-Biblical human-centric teaching of performance based “perseverance.”  They conveniently overlook the New Testament’s consistent use of these two words.  The New Testament refers to our eternal security in our Surety-Redeemer with words such as “preserve” or equivalent.  It equally uses such words as “persevere” as admonitions to God’s regenerate elect to continue faithfully in their service.  The single appearance of “perseverance” in our King James English Bible appears in Ephesians 6:18 where Paul admonishes the Ephesians to abide in prayer for God’s children.  Thus the word never appears in the New Testament with the human-centric, performance based notion that either outright states or indirectly implies that, apart from your perseverance in faith and good works, you really aren’t saved at all. 

Paul and all other inspired writers consistently build the doctrine of eternal security exclusively on God’s personal character, faithfulness, and His eternal and immutable love, not on any element of performance based human conduct.  I offer that our study verses form Paul’s summary conclusion to the three chapter section of the Roman letter that we have studied for some time.  He acknowledges what he has investigated and described in detail regarding the error of the people whom he has described and examined; despite being enemies of the gospel, they are in fact beloved of God.  This summary statement leads him directly to a forceful acknowledgement of God’s irrevocable grace and blessings upon His children.  From that point Paul will move directly into one of the most thrilling and assuring passages in the whole Bible regarding God’s amazing grace. 

We often study and teach the Bible in isolated philosophical points that ignore the integrated form in which the Holy Spirit gave it to us.  Paul and other New Testament writers will consistently build their exhortations to faith and good works on the solid foundation of God’s prior work of grace within us.  No one who heard Paul, John, or Peter preach would have thought of asking, “Yes, ‘doctrine’ is good, but what does all this eternal stuff have to do with how I live my life next week?”  They understood what many today have sadly forgotten.  Our belief about God and how He operates, particularly how He saves His people from their sins, and how He preserves them in His secure saving grace, imposes incredible consequences on how we live our lives and how we treat others around us.  In the parable of the absent landlord Jesus depicted the wicked servant who doubted his landlord’s return as beating and mistreating his fellow-servants.  The more we isolate essential Biblical doctrine from its practical and ethical implications the more we shall predictably hold those around us in low regard and mistreat them.  Conversely, the more we live every day of our life with the conscious belief that the Lord’s return is imminent and that His holy character sets a fixed—never a relativistic—example and command for our conduct the more we will manifest our Lord and His grace as we live life and interact with others. 

We believe in grace—let us also live grace ( Colossians 4:6 ),

Joe Holder

Enemies but Beloved:  Practical Implications 

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. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! ( Romans 11:28-33 ) 

             We have lingered with this passage due to its surprising conclusion.  Paul describes the people of whom he writes as being both enemies of the gospel and beloved of God.  How can this be?  Who are such people?  What is their future?  On what basis does Paul reach this conclusion?  We shall examine these and related questions. 

            Clearly the people of whom Paul wrote in chapters nine through eleven of the Roman letter did not have a proper view of Jesus, not a small matter by any stretch.  Had Paul concluded that they were eternally separated from God and doomed to eternal misery based on this fact, most contemporary theologians of our day would congratulate him and affirm his conclusion.  The surprise appears in Paul’s conclusion that, despite being enemies “…concerning the gospel,” these people were “…beloved for the fathers’ sakes.”  This conclusion puts Paul and many contemporary theologians on opposite sides of the question.  I’ll comfortably stand with Paul when such a difference of opinion arises. 

            First let’s examine a core question.  On what basis does Paul reach this startling conclusion?  For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.  Paul does not build his thesis on an unstated presumption that these folks might later repent and recant their present error.  In fact he doesn’t base his conclusion on them at all, but rather he builds his point on the character of God.  Some might interpret this sentence to say that God doesn’t require repentance prior to bestowing His spiritual gifts and calling.  Isolated from the context, we might stretch the sentence to make that point, but that idea in no way flows from the context in which Paul writes these words.  Further, New Testament writers in fact do make the point that many spiritual blessings flow to and enrich God’s regenerate elect specifically contingent on their repentance.  Thus the interpretation in question puts this passage in direct contradiction to those passages.  Scripture consistently commands God’s children to repent.  God’s goodness leads us to repentance ( Romans 2:4 ), though Paul here does not indicate that our repentance is in any way divinely and irresistibly orchestrated “…by the effectual moving of the Holy Spirit.”  Peter specifically links the “…gift of the Holy Ghost” to repentance and baptism ( Acts 2:38 ), adding the corollary command to his hearers to “Save yourselves from this untoward generation” ( Acts 2:40 ).  Thus the interpretation in question puts Paul and Peter in specific contradiction on the question if we interpret our study passage in the manner indicated above. 

            It rather seems that Paul is affirming that God’s eternal love for His chosen people, and the gifts and calling (Do not overlook the singular form of the word; Scripture refers to various callings from God, but Paul sets this particular calling apart) are irrevocable.  In this setting and related to this calling and gifts God doesn’t bestow the gifts and calling only to later recant and withdraw the gifts and calling.  If this be the correct interpretation of the sentence, then we may conclude logically with the contextual flow of the verse that Paul here affirms that God doesn’t revoke His gifts and calling bestowed on these particular “beloved enemies” because of their abominable failure to believe in Jesus. 

            In the last study we briefly examined two examples of “beloved enemies” from Paul’s New Testament writings, the Jerusalem-Antioch incident ( Acts 15 th chapter), along with its possible corollary in the Galatian churches, and the corrupting work of false teachers who claimed that the resurrection had already occurred, overthrowing the faith of some ( 2 Timothy 2:19 ).  I observe that the New Testament is consistently severe in its judgments against false teachers, and, at the same time, quite gracious toward deceived sheep under the influence of these false teachers, a point clearly made in the context of this Second Timothy passage. 

            As we examine the debate regarding circumcision ( Acts 15 ), and a near exact problem in the Galatian churches, we should note the intensity with which Paul and Barnabas confronted this error.  For that matter, we should not overlook the intensity with which Jerusalem Church confronted it in their letter to Antioch Church , despite the fact that Jerusalem Church ’s members were the people who stirred the circumcision controversy in Antioch Church . 

Let’s consider this error as fully examined and confronted by Paul in the Galatian letter.  In the opening verses of the letter Paul observes that, by embracing this error, the Galatians have not only departed from the gospel of Christ, but they have departed from Christ Himself ( Galatians 1:6 ).  The Galatians heard the gospel and were converted by it, likely from Paul’s own mouth.  After Paul departed they heard another gospel from other men and at least some of them believed the error.  Upon learning that some of the Galatians embraced this false teaching, Paul wrote the Galatian letter.  Paul categorically charges them with not only leaving the true gospel for a message of lesser quality, but he also charged them with leaving “him that called you….”  Paul didn’t embrace the idea that we could believe and preach multiple gospels that contradict each other.  He insisted on one gospel and one truth. How could he do otherwise, given Jesus’ personal testimony ( John 14:6 )?  Do not miss the consistent definite articles that Jesus used).  We cannot diminish the severity of the error that these false teachers promoted in the Galatian churches.  Paul focuses on the gravity of the error.  However, we also must not overlook Paul’s repeated description of the Galatians themselves throughout the letter as beloved though disobedient children of God ( Galatians 1:11 , and several other locations in the letter, “brethren;” 4:6, where he specifically calls them “sons” in whose God has sent the Spirit of His Son; 4:9, where he affirms that God knows them, though at the moment their knowledge of God is not as clear as His knowledge of them; 4:31, where he refers to them as children of the free woman, not children of the bondwoman; and 5:1 and context, where he acknowledges that Christ has set them free).  It is by no means incredible to conclude that at the moment Paul regarded the Galatians to be enemies “concerning the gospel,” though he clearly did not diminish his firm belief that they were beloved of God.  Thus the Galatian churches become a living New Testament example of the very class of people that Paul describes in our study passage.  Without question they were beloved of God, but also without question, given their present compromised beliefs, they had become enemies “concerning the gospel.” 

We may as readily reach the same conclusion regarding those who fell under the gross error of the false teachers whom Paul named in Second Timothy 2:17-25 .  Paul did not conclude that these deceived people didn’t really have true faith because they fell prey to Hymenaeus and Philetus; he rather noted that these two insidious false teachers overthrew their faith.  In that context he affirms that an overthrown faith does not require an overthrown Savior!  God’s foundation, according to Paul in that context, stands sure, not based on the faithful continuance of hungry sheep, even in the presence of convincing false teachers, but rather based on the rock-solid foundation of God’s eternal and loving knowledge of His own ( 2 Timothy 2:19 ). 

            Based on these two strong examples from the inspired New Testament record, how might we apply this truth to our own time?  The Galatian letter confronts and refutes the fundamental premise of Arminian theology, salvation by human works or salvation by a synergistic blend of divine assistance and human works.  Is contemporary Arminian belief any less insidious to God’s grace than the beliefs promoted by the errant Galatian teachers?  If we follow the theological clarity of the doctrines of grace as set forth throughout the New Testament, but then embrace an errant view of Paul’s conclusion regarding those who were beloved of God, yet enemies of the gospel, we might fall into the contemporary errors of human-centric perseverance.  This error might well lead us to contradict Paul’s inspired assessment of the Galatians, that they were yet beloved despite their errant beliefs.   If we followed this contemporary error, are we then to conclude that all people who embrace Arminian theology are “not really children of God” because they refuse to agree with our theology?  If we ever become so inclined, shame on us!  Such an arrogant notion implies that God adds “back-door” conditions to His saving grace.  “If you don’t act like my child, I just might disown you,” would be the conclusion of this error.  To impose such conditions onto God’s love is to reject everything the New Testament says about God’s undefeatable love for His chosen people.  It would impose onto Paul’s conclusion in Romans 8:38-39 the mirror opposite belief to the one that he there expressed by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  It would assert that his intent was to warn us that nothing can separate us from God’s love, but that many who believe they are beloved of God are in fact not at all children of God.  I repeat the point made earlier in this study.  When faced with the choice of standing with Paul or with his detractors, be they first century detractors or twenty-first century detractors, I’ll stand without apology beside Paul and affirm God’s truth.  As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.