‘Brothers and sisters, my heart's good pleasure and my supplication to God is for them, that they may be saved (literally ‘unto salvation').'
Paul now diverts (‘brothers and sisters') in order again to express his deep regret over the fact that the Jews are not saved, for this is his great desire that they might find eternal life. And he explains how he longs that they might be so by believing in their Messiah. Indeed he points out that his feelings concerning them are so deep that he prays from ‘the good pleasure of his heart' to God on their behalf ‘unto their salvation'. What ‘unto salvation' means in this context is defined in Romans 10:10. It is the consequence of confessing Jesus as LORD. And this is what he longs that the Jews might experience. Thus he quite clearly does not believe that they could be saved while they continued as Jews and in rejection of the Messiah. This is apparent from the whole context, for as he has emphasised, they had failed to submit to the Messiah (Romans 10:3-4); they had not subjected themselves to the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3); they were ignorant of God's righteousness (Romans 10:3); they had stumbled at the stumblingstone of the Messiah (Romans 9:32-33); and they had not arrived at the Law (Romans 9:31). As Romans 2:1 to Romans 3:19 has brought out they had failed in their attempt to fulfil the Law. Thus they were a disobedient and gainsaying (obstinate) people (Romans 10:21). It is clear then that at this present time they were not seen as in process of being saved.
This expression of Paul's deep concern (compare Romans 9:1-5) was important, for it brought home to the Jewish Christians that he was not complacent over the situation of the Jews, and that he had not denied his ancestry. Rather he was stressing that he was deeply concerned that they should participate in what the Messiah, Who had been born among them, had brought. The Gentile Christians should therefore note that Jews were not to be despised by them (see Romans 11:18 ff.).