How does Paul argue that God’s word has not miscarried?

Paul speaks truth in Christ, with his conscience bearing witness in the Holy Ghost to great sadness and continual sorrow. He wished himself anathema from Christ for his kinsmen according to the flesh. The annotation explains curse and willingness to suffer any evil for their sake without offending God. To the Israelites belong adoption, glory, the testament, the giving of the law, God’s service, the promises and the fathers; from them according to the flesh comes Christ, who is over all, God blessed for ever.

God’s word has not miscarried, for not everyone descended from Israel is an Israelite. The annotation distinguishes carnal descent from true Israelites in God’s account: free grace preferred Isaac to Ismael and Jacob to Esau, and similarly makes Gentiles through faith spiritual children of Abraham and Israel. Abraham’s seed are not all counted children; seed is called in Isaac, and the promise rather than flesh counts. The promise says Sara shall have a son. Rebecca conceived of Isaac, and before the twins’ birth or any good or evil act, the words about the elder serving the younger show election. Paul cites Jacob loved and Esau hated.

The annotation says election, mercy and grace are tied neither to nation, birth prerogative nor preceding merits. Before grace all are found in sin, common condemnation and wrath. None is unjustly left: deliverance is mercy and remaining is justice. It compares a king pardoning one of two equally criminal people while the other’s execution proceeds in justice. This is the commentator’s analogy.

There is no injustice with God. Moses hears that God will have mercy as he wills. It is not of willing or running but of God showing mercy; the gloss qualifies willing and running as one’s own strength apart from grace. Scripture says Pharao was raised to show God’s power and proclaim his name throughout the earth. The annotation denies God made him to sin or be damned: foreseeing obstinacy and abuse of free will, God raised him as a mighty king for a remarkable example, making power known and the justice of punishment public. God has mercy and hardens as he wills; the note explains hardening as withholding grace and leaving someone in sin for past demerits, rather than authoring sin.

The objection asking why God finds fault and who resists his will receives the answer about a formed thing and its maker, followed by the potter’s authority over one lump for vessels of honour and dishonour. The annotation limits the comparison to not disputing the Maker and to differing grace: the whole clay is vitiated by sin, honour owes to goodness and mercy, and dishonour is punishment for unrepented sins. God patiently endures vessels of wrath fitted for destruction and shows the riches of glory on vessels of mercy prepared for glory, calling from Jews and Gentiles.

Osee’s quotation calls those not his people his people, the unloved beloved and the unmercied mercied; where they were called not his people they will be called sons of the living God. Isaias says that though Israel number as the sea’s sand, a remnant shall be saved. The annotation concerns a small number of Israel converted and saved, and rejects applying this verse to salvation in all religions. Paul includes the word finished and cut short in justice, the Lord’s short word on earth, and the seed left by the Lord of Sabbaoth preventing likeness to Sodom and Gomorrha. Gentiles not pursuing justice attained the justice of faith; Israel pursuing its law did not attain it because they sought it not through faith but as through works and stumbled. The quotation about Sion’s stumbling stone and rock of scandal promises that the believer shall not be confounded.