ROMAS 9 COMMETARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE God's Sovereign Choice 1I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— BARES, “I say the truth - In what I am about to affirm respecting my attachment to the nation and people. In Christ - Most interpreters regard this as a form of an oath, as equivalent to calling Christ to witness. It is certainly to be regarded, in its obvious sense, as an appeal to Christ as the searcher of the heart, and as the judge of falsehood. Thus, the word translated “in” ν en is used in the form of an oath in Mat_5:34-36 ; Rev_10:6 , Greek. We are to remember that the apostle was addressing those who had been Jews; and the expression has all the force of an oath “by the Messiah.” This shows that it is right on great and solemn occasions, and in a solemn manner, and thus only, to appeal to Christ for the sincerity of our motives, and for the truth of what we say. And it shows further, that it is right to regard the Lord Jesus Christ as present with us, as searching the heart, as capable of detecting insincerity, hypocrisy, and perjury, and as therefore divine. My conscience - Conscience is that act or judgment of the mind by which we decide on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of our actions, and by which we instantly approve or condemn them. It exists in every man, and is a strong witness to our integrity or to our guilt. Bearing me witness - Testifying to the truth of what I say. In the Holy Ghost - He does not say that he speaks the truth by or in the Holy Spirit, as he had said of Christ; but that the conscience pronounced its concurring testimony by the Holy Spirit; that is, conscience as enlightened and influenced by the Holy Spirit. It was not simply natural conscience, but it was conscience under the full influence of the Enlightener of the mind and Sanctifier of the heart. The reasons of this solemn asseveration are probably the following: (1) His conduct and his doctrines had led some to believe that he was an apostate, and had lost his love for his countrymen. He had forsaken their institutions, and devoted himself to the salvation of the Gentiles. He here shows them that it was from no lack of love to them. (2) The doctrines which he was about to state and defend were of a similar character; he was about to maintain that no small part of his own countrymen, notwithstanding their privileges, would be rejected and lost. In this solemn manner, therefore, he assures them that this doctrine had not been embraced because he did not love them, but because it was solemn, though most painful truth. He proceeds to enumerate their privileges as a people, and to show to them the strength and tenderness of his love.
1. ROMA S 9 COMME TARY EDITED BY GLE PEASE God's Sovereign
Choice 1I speak the truth in ChristI am not lying, my conscience
confirms it in the Holy Spirit BAR ES, I say the truth - In what I
am about to affirm respecting my attachment to the nation and
people. In Christ - Most interpreters regard this as a form of an
oath, as equivalent to calling Christ to witness. It is certainly
to be regarded, in its obvious sense, as an appeal to Christ as the
searcher of the heart, and as the judge of falsehood. Thus, the
word translated in en is used in the form of an oath in
Mat_5:34-36; Rev_10:6, Greek. We are to remember that the apostle
was addressing those who had been Jews; and the expression has all
the force of an oath by the Messiah. This shows that it is right on
great and solemn occasions, and in a solemn manner, and thus only,
to appeal to Christ for the sincerity of our motives, and for the
truth of what we say. And it shows further, that it is right to
regard the Lord Jesus Christ as present with us, as searching the
heart, as capable of detecting insincerity, hypocrisy, and perjury,
and as therefore divine. My conscience - Conscience is that act or
judgment of the mind by which we decide on the lawfulness or
unlawfulness of our actions, and by which we instantly approve or
condemn them. It exists in every man, and is a strong witness to
our integrity or to our guilt. Bearing me witness - Testifying to
the truth of what I say. In the Holy Ghost - He does not say that
he speaks the truth by or in the Holy Spirit, as he had said of
Christ; but that the conscience pronounced its concurring testimony
by the Holy Spirit; that is, conscience as enlightened and
influenced by the Holy Spirit. It was not simply natural
conscience, but it was conscience under the full influence of the
Enlightener of the mind and Sanctifier of the heart. The reasons of
this solemn asseveration are probably the following: (1) His
conduct and his doctrines had led some to believe that he was an
apostate, and had lost his love for his countrymen. He had forsaken
their institutions, and devoted himself to the salvation of the
Gentiles. He here shows them that it was from no lack of love to
them. (2) The doctrines which he was about to state and defend were
of a similar character; he was about to maintain that no small part
of his own countrymen, notwithstanding their privileges, would be
rejected and lost. In this solemn manner, therefore, he assures
them that this doctrine had not been embraced because he did not
love them, but because it was solemn, though most painful truth. He
proceeds to enumerate their privileges as a people, and to show to
them the strength and tenderness of his love.
2. CLARKE, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not - This is one
of the most solemn oaths any man can possibly take. He appeals to
Christ as the searcher of hearts that he tells the truth; asserts
that his conscience was free from all guile in this matter, and
that the Holy Ghost bore him testimony that what he said was true.
Hence we find that the testimony of a mans own conscience, and the
testimony of the Holy Ghost, are two distinct things, and that the
apostle had both at the same time. As the apostle had still
remaining a very awful part of his commission to execute, namely,
to declare to the Jews not only that God had chosen the Gentiles,
but had rejected them because they had rejected Christ and his
Gospel, it was necessary that he should assure them that however he
had been persecuted by them because he had embraced the Gospel, yet
it was so far from being a gratification to him that they had now
fallen under the displeasure of God, that it was a subject of
continual distress to his mind, and that it produced in him great
heaviness and continual sorrow. GILL, I say the truth in Christ, I
lie not,.... The apostle being about to discourse concerning
predestination, which he had mentioned in the preceding chapter,
and to open the springs and causes of it, and also concerning the
induration and rejection of the Jewish nation; he thought it
necessary to preface his account of these things with some strong
assurances of his great attachment to that people, and his
affection for them, lest it should be thought he spoke out of
prejudice to them; and well knowing in what situation he stood in
with them, on account of his preaching up the abrogation of the
ceremonial law, and how difficult it might be for him to obtain
their belief in what he should say, he introduces it with a solemn
oath, "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not": which refers not to
what he had said in the foregoing chapter, but to what he was going
to say; and is all one as if he had said, as I am in Christ, a
converted person, one born again, and renewed in the spirit of my
mind, what I am about to speak is truth, and no lie; or I swear by
Christ the God of truth, who is truth itself, and I appeal to him
as the true God, the searcher of hearts, that what I now deliver is
truth, and nothing but truth, and has no falsehood in it. This both
shows that the taking of an oath is lawful, and that Christ is
truly God, by whom only persons ought to swear: my conscience
bearing me witness. The apostle, besides his appeal to Christ,
calls his conscience to witness to the truth of his words; and this
is as a thousand witnesses; there is in every man a conscience,
which unless seared as with a red hot iron, will accuse or excuse,
and bear a faithful testimony to words and actions; and especially
a conscience enlightened, cleansed, and sanctified by the Spirit of
God, as was the apostle's: hence he adds, in the Holy Ghost;
meaning either that his conscience was influenced and directed by
the Holy Ghost in what he was about to say; or it bore witness in
and with the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost with that; so that here
are three witnesses called in, Christ, conscience, and the Holy
Ghost; and by three such witnesses, his words must be thought to be
well established. HE RY, We have here the apostle's solemn
profession of a great concern for the
3. nation and people of the Jews - that he was heartily
troubled that so many of them were enemies to the gospel, and out
of the way of salvation. For this he had great heaviness and
continual sorrow. Such a profession as this was requisite to take
off the odium which otherwise he might have contracted by asserting
and proving their rejection. It is wisdom as much as may be to
mollify those truths which sound harshly and seem unpleasant: dip
the nail in oil, it will drive the better. The Jews had a
particular pique at Paul above any of the apostles, as appears by
the history of the Acts, and therefore were the more apt to take
things amiss of him, to prevent which he introduces his discourse
with this tender and affectionate profession, that they might not
think he triumphed or insulted over the rejected Jews or was
pleased with the calamities that were coming upon them. Thus
Jeremiah appeals to God concerning the Jews of his day, whose ruin
was hastening on (Jer_17:16), Neither have I desired the woeful
day, thou knowest. Nay, Paul was so far from desiring it that he
most pathetically deprecates it. And lest this should be thought
only a copy of his countenance, to flatter and please them, I. He
asserts it with a solemn protestation (Rom_9:1): I say the truth in
Christ, I speak it as a Christian, one of God's people, children
that will not lie, as one that knows not how to give flattering
title. Or, I appeal to Christ, who searches the heart, concerning
it. He appeals likewise to his own conscience, which was instead of
a thousand witnesses. That which he was going to assert was not
only a great and weighty thing (such solemn protestations are not
to be thrown away upon trifles), but it was likewise a secret; it
was concerning a sorrow in his heart to which none was a capable
competent witness but God and his own conscience. - That I have
great heaviness, Rom_9:2. He does not say for what; the very
mention of it was unpleasant and invidious; but it is plain that he
means for the rejection of the Jews. JAMISO , Rom_9:1-33. The
bearing of the foregoing truths upon the condition and destiny of
the chosen people - Election - The calling of the Gentiles. Too
well aware that he was regarded as a traitor to the dearest
interests of his people (Act_21:33; Act_22:22; Act_25:24), the
apostle opens this division of his subject by giving vent to his
real feelings with extraordinary vehemence of protestation. I say
the truth in Christ as if steeped in the spirit of Him who wept
over impenitent and doomed Jerusalem (compare Rom_1:9; 2Co_12:19;
Phi_1:8). my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost my
conscience as quickened, illuminated, and even now under the direct
operation of the Holy Ghost. CALVI , In this chapter he begins to
remove the offences which might have diverted the minds of men from
Christ: for the Jews, for whom he was appointed ACCORDING to the
covenant of the law, not only rejected him, but regarded him with
contempt, and for the most part bated him. Hence one of two things
seemed to follow, either that there was no truth in the Divine
promise, or that Jesus, whom Paul preached, was not the Lord
anointed, who had been especially promised to the Jews. This
twofold knot Paul fully unties in what follows. He, however, so
handles this subject, as to abstain from all bitterness against the
Jews, that he might not exasperate their minds; and yet he concedes
to them nothing to the injury of the gospel; for he allows to them
their privileges in such a way, as not to detract anything from
Christ. But he passes, as it were abruptly, to the mention of this
subject, so that there appears to be no connection in the
discourse. (283) He, however, so ENTERS on this new subject, as
though he had before referred to it. It so happened in this way,
Having finished the doctrine he discussed, he turned his attention
to the Jews, and being astonished at their unbelief as at something
monstrous, he burst forth into this sudden
4. protestation, in the same way as though it was a subject
which he had previously handled; for there was no one to whom this
thought would not of itself immediately occur, this be the doctrine
of the law and the Prophets, how comes it that the Jews so
pertinaciously reject it? And further, it was everywhere known,
that all that he had hitherto spoken of the law of Moses, and of
the grace of Christ, was more disliked by the Jews, than that the
faith of the Gentiles should be assisted by their consent. It was
therefore necessary to remove this obstacle, lest it should impede
the course of the gospel. 1.The truth I say in Christ, etc. As it
was an opinion entertained by most that Paul was, as it were, a
sworn enemy to his own nation, and as it was suspected somewhat
even by the household of faith, as though he had taught them to
forsake Moses, he adopts a preface to prepare the minds of his
readers, before he proceeds to his subject, and in this preface he
frees himself from the false suspicion of evil will towards the
Jews. And as the matter was not unworthy of an oath, and as he
perceived that his affirmation would hardly be otherwise believed
against a prejudice already entertained, he declares by an oath
that he speaks the truth. By this example and the like, (as I
reminded you in the first chapter,) we ought to learn that oaths
are lawful, that is, when they render that truth credible which is
necessary to be known, and which would not be otherwise believed.
The expression, In Christ, means to Christ. (284) By adding I lie
not, he signifies that he speaks without fiction or disguise. My
conscience testifying to me, etc. By these words he calls his own
conscience before the tribunal of God, for he brings in the Spirit
as a witness to his feeling. He adduced the Spirit for this end,
that he might more fully testify that he was free and pure from an
evil disposition, and that he pleaded the cause of Christ under the
guidance and direction of the Spirit of God. It often happens that
a person, blinded by the passions of the flesh, (though not
purposing to deceive,) knowingly and wilfully obscures the light of
truth. But to swear by the name of God, in a proper sense of the
word, is to call him as a witness for the purpose of CONFIRMING
what is doubtful, and at the same time to bind ourselves over to
his judgment, in case we say what is false. COFFMA , With this
chapter, one section of Romans ends and another BEGINS . The eighth
chapter concluded Paul's outline of the complete acceptance of the
Gentiles into God's kingdom. He extended to them the most
extravagant assurance of their justification and providential
support leading to their ultimate glorification in the presence of
God himself, such blessings being far superior to anything ever
known before, by either Jews or Gentiles; and now that Paul had
finished speaking of those good things, the thought of his own
people, the Jews, in their condition of rebellion against God and
of rejecting the Messiah, pressed upon his heart. The Jews, who
should have been the first to receive those great blessings, and
who should have led all the world in their acceptance of them, had,
through their leaders, rejected the Saviour; and the great majority
of them had followed the blind leadership. Paul's overwhelming
emotion of grief and sorrow bursts through in the moving words of
the first paragraph (Romans 9:1-5). This and the two following
chapters deal with the problem of Israel's rejection of the Christ.
This chapter may be outlined thus: (1) Paul skillfully introduced
the problem of Israel's attitude of rejection toward Christ,
affirming his love for his own nation, and showing his appreciation
of what God had done through them (Romans 9:1-5). (2) God's
rejection of Israel, due to their rejection of the Messiah, was
shown to be consistent with God's promises and his sovereignty
(Romans 9:6- 24). (3) The rejection of Israel was SPECIFICALLY
foretold by the Jewish prophets (Romans 9:25-29). (4) Conclusions
from this line of reasoning (Romans 9:25-30). Lard called this
chapter "emphatically the artistic chapter of the Letter."[1]Paul's
SUBJECT , the rejection of Israel and the calling of the Gentiles,
was repugnant as any that could be imagined for Jewish minds, and
this necessitated great skill and tact on his part in daring to
launch into a discussion of it. Paul's discernment, knowledge of
God's word, and skill in presenting such painful disclosures are
apparent in every line. Every word of Paul's message was adorned by
the evidence of his rich and overflowing love for his race and
nation. ENDNOTE:
5. [1] Moses E. Lard, Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans
(Cincinnati, Ohio: Christian Board of Publication, 1914), p. 291. I
say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness
with me in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 9:1) Although in no sense an
oath, Paul here spoke in the most dogmatic and convincing manner
possible, thus emphasizing the utmost accuracy and solemnity of
what he was about to say. The use of both positive and negative
statements for the sake of emphasis is common in scripture. For
impossible to view it as a form of oath.[2] ENDNOTE: [2] David
Lipscomb, A Commentary on New Testament Epistles (Nashville: Gospel
Advocate Company, 1967), p. 164. HAWKER 1-5, I say the truth in
Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the
Holy Ghost, (2) That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in
my heart. (3) For I could wish that myself were accursed from
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: (4) Who
are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and
the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God,
and the promises; (5) Whose are the fathers, and of whom as
concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed
forever. Amen. Perhaps no passage in the word of God is more
difficult to apprehend, than the one at the opening of this
Chapter. Here is the Apostle, in his regenerate state, entering
with such warmth and earnestness of soul, into the spiritual and
eternal concerns of Israel after the flesh, that he professes a
wish to be accursed from Christ for the accomplishment of their
salvation, And, he appeals to Christ for the truth of it. Yea, God
the Holy Ghost bears him witness he saith in his own conscience,
that it is so. That Paul might feel, as he saith he did, great
sorrow of heart in the view of his brethren after the flesh being
shut out of Christs kingdom, is very probable. Natural feelings are
very strong feelings. But here Paul is speaking as under the most
fervent gracious impressions. And yet both nature and grace seem to
be in direct opposition to what Paul here wished. For it is
contrary to the first law of nature, to wish a mans own damnation.
And, it is contrary to all the finer feelings of grace, to
contemplate, much less wish, being forever separated from Christ
upon any consideration whatever. It is a most difficult passage to
apprehend. We meet with an instance in the first view somewhat
similar, when Moses, the man of God, prayed so fervently for
Israel, that he begged his name might rather be blotted out of the
book of God than Israel, Exo_32:32. But the book here alluded to,
most probably meant the book of temporal life, and not the eternal.
Pauls is a much higher note: Accursed from Christ. Indeed none but
one, even the God-Man Christ Jesus, could bear the curse, and be
made a curse for his redeemed. It was his peculiar honor and glory,
Gal_3:13. I must leave the passage as I found it, for I am free to
confess it is attended with too much difficulty of apprehension for
me to explore. One improvement may be drawn from it; when we behold
such an ardent zeal for the welfare of immortal souls in the
Apostle, to take shame in the recollection, how cold and lifeless
all of the present hour are, who minister in holy things, in the
ministry of the word and ordinances. Oh! for a fervency of spirit,
both in ministers and Churches! Lord the Holy Ghost! pour out of
thy blessed influences,
6. and cause a revival in this our day and generation! Let it
be observed, concerning those of whom the Apostle speaks, that the
privileges they are here said to have enjoyed, were not spiritual.
They were Israelites, because descended from Jacob by natural
descent, which made them so far honorable in that alliance. But
they were not of the spiritual seed, concerning whom it was said,
in Isaac shall thy seed be called, Gen_21:12. Neither is the
adoption here spoken of, that adoption which is of grace, but
nature. God separated this one family, with whom might be deposited
the shadows and types of the covenant in Christ. But all these were
designed no further, than to minister to that better covenant
established upon better promises, Heb_8:6. Paul felt, however, a
very high regard for Israel after the flesh, in that they were not
only his brethren, as a nation, but also as the Lord had so
distinguished them with such unspeakable blessings, in their
peculiar national character, with his ordinances, and above all, in
that high honor that Christ after the flesh should come, w ho is
over all, God, blessed forever. Amen! BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, I say
the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Ghost. The truth I. Should be spoken always,
and under all circumstances. II. Should be spoken in christ. 1. As
a Christian duty. 2. As in Christs presence. 3. In Christs Spirit.
4. For Christs honour. III. Should be attended by conscience. 1.
Enlightened. 2. Influenced. 3. Approved by the Holy Spirit. IV. May
only be confirmed by direct appeal to God under very solemn and
extraordinary circumstances. (J. Lyth, D.D.) Christ the sphere of
spiritual being In Christ. This was one of the apostles favourite
expressions. All Christians according to him are in Christ. They
have been baptized in Christ (Rom_6:3), i.e., they have been united
to Christ by the baptism of the Spirit (1Co_12:13); so that they
are in Christ as if they were parts of His person, members of His
body. When the apostle thinks of this union, he sometimes allows
the relations of time past and time future to interpenetrate, so
that to his eye believers have not only been crucified with Christ
(Gal_2:20) and buried with Him (Rom_6:4), but also raised with Him
(Col_2:12; Col 3:1), and glorified with Him in heavenly places
(Eph_2:6). Christians have their Christian being in Christ.
7. They are justified (Gal_2:17), sanctified (1Co_1:1-31; 1Co
2:1-16), triumph (2Co_2:14), speak in Christ (2Co_2:17; 2Co 12:19).
The personality of Christ had, to his transfiguring conception,
become the sphere of his spiritual being and activity, so that what
he did, in the express consciousness of his Christian state, he did
in the realised presence of Christ, and thus all the nobler
elements of his spiritual being were intensified and exalted. In
such a mood how could he stoop to wilful misrepresentation?
Realising that he was, so to speak, interred in Christ, he felt
that in his ethical acts he was dominated by the power that
ensphered him, (J. Morison, D.D.) Conscience and the Spirit 1. St.
Paul does here a most difficult thing. He distinguishes two voices
within, and his own voice from either. Consciencethe Holy
Ghostbearing me witness. These distinctions are important. Some
confuse conscience and the Spirit, others leave the Spirit
altogether out, and conscience alone recognised as the guide of
man. 2. Consciencewhich is, literally, co-knowledgeis a natural
faculty. Like intellect, affection, or any other department of the
man, conscience is rather a state than an ingredient of the person.
We introduce confusion when we speak of the unit being as split
into parts. Memory, will, conscience, and the rest, are, in
reality, only so many conditions or moods of the one man. 3.
Conscience is that state of the man in which he reviews and judges
his own actions. It is natural to every man to ask of himself, Of
what complexion is this thing which I have thought, spoken, or
done, in regard to right and wrong? We cannot help itit is a sign,
therefore, neither of good nor evilwe must sit in judgment upon
ourselves. Who is so happy as never to have passed an unquiet night
in the remembrance of word spoken or deed done during the day? And
yet there was no one to reproach him! The thing itself was unknown
to the world. No matter! He was his own accuser, witness, judge,
and executioner. But conscience also exercises a legislative as
well as a judicial function. It says, This is right, do itthis is
wrong, shun itas well as, This was wrong, and thou hast done it,
etc. 4. This conscience was without the gospel, and is still with
it. See the case of Paul (Act_23:1, of. 24:16; 2Ti_1:3, cf.
1Ti_1:19). As much towards mans nature, as towards the law, Christs
office was to elevate, to deepen, to perfect, not to abolish. Just
as Christ took the instinct of patriotism, and turned it into a
world-wide benevolence, or the love of those that love us
(Mat_5:46), and consecrated it into a universal charity; so He took
the natural instinct which we call conscience, and both instructed
it in the Divine law of which before it had but the dimmest
conception, and also enabled it with that preventing grace which is
the presence of the indwelling Spirit. 5. It is a great thing to be
conscientious, but it does not make a man a Christian. St. Paul was
conscientious, so were some Pharisees, and in these days of grace
and the gospel there are conscientious lives which are both
un-Christian and anti-Christian. But I am well assured of this,
that for one man who lives a good life out of Christ, a hundred
thousand are wallowing in the sty of sin for lack of Him. Even in
those men who think themselves able to dispense with Him I can
always notice some damaging deficiency, self-conceit, coldness,
exclusiveness, or uselessness. All this makes me understand why St.
Paul and the Master should make so much of that superadded gift,
which is the presence of Gods Holy Spirit. There are those amongst
us who have
8. bitterly felt the powerlessness of conscience. They have
suffered, resolved, hoped, struggled, but again and again they have
found themselves no match for the strong man armed. We may blame,
but the weak by nature may be made strong by grace. A man whose
conscience has failed to give him the victory may find victory in
Christ. It will be hard work for him; but prayer can prevail where
resolution has faltered; the man whose conscience has been blunted
may bare it set again and edged and made powerful by grace; he who
knows what it is to have stifled and all but silenced the inward
voice, may yet hear it again in new tones, but with new powers
also, speaking of Christ crucified and the love of the Spirit. 6.
The Church and the Churchs Lord can compassionate the feebleness
which man never pities. The Physician came not for the whole but
for the sick. This it is which makes His gospel so inestimably
precious, and makes us weep for surprise and joy when we find Jesus
sitting at meat with publicans and sinners, bidding welcome to
sinful women, and drawing His loveliest parables from the history
of prodigals, etc. Cry out to Him for the Spirit of adoptionand
where nature fails, and conscience, prayer and the Spirit shall
prevail and conquer yet! Most of all do I commend this to those who
have sunk the deepest. But the gospel is a voice for all men. It
addresses the moral man as well as the sinner. It says to him, St.
Paul was no libertine; yet even he found his righteousness of no
avail in the day of his trial. In the brightness of heavens light
his fabric of self-assertion melted like snow. He cast away all
trust in himself, and began to build quite afresh upon the one
foundation which is Jesus Christ. How should it be otherwise with
you? 7. Let so many of us as have risen into this higher life of
grace and the Spirit see that we seek therein a liberty, not of
sin, but of God. St. Paul himself exercised himself day by day to
have always a conscience void of offence. Conscience in him was
still the law; only it was a conscience not bounded by law, but
enlarged and illuminated by the Spirit. When he described himself,
for a moment, as without the law, he yet was careful to add, lest
any should misinterpret him, being not without law to God, but
under the law to Christ. (Dean Vaughan.) Conscience, consciousness,
and the Spirit In order to do justice to the Greek idea it is
necessary to cord together mentally the two words conscience and
consciousness. In the usage of New Testament and Stoic philosophy
the term almost always throws out into relief its moral import.
Hence we read of a good and pure, and also of an evil, defiled and
seared conscience, of a conscience toward God, and one void of
offence. The moral character of the conscience in this acceptation
of the term is strikingly represented by the derivation
conscientiousness. In Heb_10:2 the psychological idea of conscience
is predominant, and is strong in 2Co_1:12. Here it must not be lost
sight of, but the moral idea is predominant. The conscientious
principle within the apostle attested the veracity of his utterance
when he said, I am not lying. It is worthy of note that the apostle
allows himself the use of a popular representation of the
conscienceviz., as if it were distinct from himselfreminding us of
Adam Smiths phrase, the man within the breast. Paul makes his
appeal to this man. He had referred simply to himself when he said
I lie not. That was his own proper testimony concerning himself.
But either deliberately or instinctively realising that men often
falsify even when they say We lie not, he turns to the man within,
and listens till he hears him say, True, thou liest not. Of course
the Romans could not look within the apostles breast and verify the
concurrent testimony.
9. There was but one person in the witness box, the apostle
himself. But the apostle had not merely to satisfy the Romans; that
might or might not be possible. He had to satisfy himself; and that
was possible if he was honest. Thus it is that after his outward
affirmation he turns in, and receiving inward confirmation, he, as
it were, reaffirms. To all who know the man, such a solemn
reaffirmation would render assurance, if that were possible, doubly
sure. Once more, the apostles conscience bore witness in the Holy
Spirit. Like the rest he was a man full of the Holy Ghost, so that
at every point of his spiritual being he was touched and energised
by the heavenly influence. There was still, it is true, the
unimpaired principle of moral freedom in the centre of his being,
in virtue of which it devolved on himself, as a real self-contained
person, to welcome and cherish the hallowing influence. The mans
individual manhood was not absorbed into the infinite essence.
Neither was his moral accountability merged or superseded. But he
in his freedom had made his choice. To him to live was Christ. And
hence all the avenues to the very centre of his being were
habitually left open to the ingress of the Holy Spirit whom he
neither resisted nor grieved. And when, therefore, his inward
conscience bore concurrent testimony with his outward declaration,
there was more than itself in the voice of that conscience. There
was the echo of the voice of Gods Spirit. (J. Morison, D.D.) That I
have great heaviness. Pauls concern for Israel I. Its character. 1.
Sincere. 2. Divinely inspired. II. Its intensity. 1. Great. 2.
Continual. 3. Self-sacrificing. III. Its special grounds. 1. Their
high privileges. 2. National affinity with Christ. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Concern for other mens souls I. The persons about whom Paul felt
this anxiety. 1. His worst enemies. If any of you in following
Christ should meet with opposition, avenge it in the same way. Love
most the man who treats you worst. 2. His kinsfolk according to the
flesh. Charity must begin at home. He who does not desire the
salvation of those who are his own kith and kin, how dwelleth the
love of God in him? Is thy husband unsaved? Love him to Christ!
Next to your homes let your own neighbours be first of all
considered, and then your country, for all Englishmen are
akin.
10. 3. Persons of great privileges. (1) They had privileges by
birthWho are Israelites. Many of you have the privilege of being
born in the midst of gracious influences. Those poor gutter
children start in the race of life under terrible disadvantages.
And some of you have had everything in your favour; yet we tremble
for you, lest you should be cast out, while many come from the east
and from the west and sit down at the banquet of grace. (2) They
had the adoption, and enjoyed national advantages; and God has been
pleased to adopt this nation, giving it special liberty, an open
Bible, and the free proclamation of the gospel. (3) They had the
glory, i.e., God had revealed Himself in their midst from the
mercy-seat in the bright light of the Shekinah. And in this very
house of prayer the Lord has manifested His glory very wonderfully.
Many hundreds have been turned from darkness to light in this
place! (4) They had the first hold of all spiritual gifts. They had
seen God revealing His Son to them by types; but Christ is not so
well seen in bleeding bullocks and rams and hyssop, etc., as He is
seen in the preaching of the gospel. 4. Yet Paul had a great
solicitude for these people because he saw them living in the
commission of great sin. Although many of them were exceedingly
moral and religious. The greatest of sins is to be at enmity with
God. The most damning of iniquities is to refuse Christ. So many
now value their external religiousness above faith in Jesus. II.
The nature of this anxiety. It was 1. Very truthful. There was no
sham about it, I say the truth in Christ. He did not fancy that he
felt, but he really felt. He did not sometimes get up into that
condition or down into it, but he lived in it. I lie not, he says.
I do not exaggerate. For fear he should not be believed he
asseverates as strongly as is allowed to a Christian man. Do we
feel the same, or is it only a little excitement at a revival
meeting? You must feel deeply for the souls of men if you are to
bless them. 2. Very gracious. It was not an animal feeling, or a
natural feeling; it was in Christ. When he was nearest to his Lord,
then he felt that he did mourn over mens souls. It was truth in
Christ that he was expressing, because he was one with Christ. It
is of no use to try to get this feeling by reading books, or to
pump yourself up to it in private; it is the work of God. 3.
Spiritual. The Holy Spirit bore witness with his conscience. I am
sometimes afraid that our zeal for conversion would not stand the
test of the Holy Ghost. Perhaps we want to increase our
denomination, or enlarge our church for our own honour, or get
credit for doing good. None of these motives can be tolerated; our
concern for souls must he wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. 4. Most
deep and depressing he had great heaviness, and he tells us that
this did not come on him at times, but that he always felt it
whenever his thoughts turned that way: I have continual sorrow in
my heart. In his very heart, for it was not a superficial desire; a
continual sorrow, for it was no fitful emotion. 5. Most intense
(verse 3). Of course the apostle never thought of wishing that he
could be an enemy to Christ, but he did sometimes look at the
misery which comes upon those who are separated from Christ, until
he felt that if he could save his
11. kinsmen by his own destruction, ay, by himself enduring
their heavy punishment, he could wish to stand in their stead. He
did not say that he ever did wish it, but he felt as if he could
wish it when his heart was warm. His case was parallel with that of
Moses when he prayed the Lord to spare the people and said, If not,
blot my name out of the Book of Life. When the heart is full of
love even the boldest hyperboles are simple truths. Extravagances
are the natural expression of warm hearts even in ordinary things.
What the cool doctrinalist pulls to pieces, and the critic of words
regards as altogether absurd, true zeal nevertheless feels. Christ
saved others, Himself He could not save. Men are extravagantly
prudent, dubious, profane; they may therefore well permit the
minister of Christ to be extravagant in his love for others. Such a
text as this must be fired off red hot; it spoils if it cools. It
is a heart, not a head business. The apostle means us to understand
that there was nothing which he would not suffer if he might save
his kindred according to the flesh. III. Its excellences. What
would be the result if we felt as Paul did? 1. It would make us
like Christ. After that manner he loved. He became a curse for us.
He did what Paul could wish, but could not do. I want you to feel
that you would pass under poverty, sickness, or death, if you could
save those dear to you. I heard of a dear girl the other day who
said to her pastor, I could never bring my father to hear you, but
I have prayed for him long, and God will answer my request. Now you
will bury me, wont you? My father must come and hear you speak at
my grave. Do speak to him. God will bless him. And he did, and her
father was converted. 2. It will save us from selfishness. The
first instinct of a saved soul is a longing to bring others to
Christ. Yet, lest there should grow up in your spirit any of that
Pharisaic selfishness which was seen in the elder brother, ask to
feel a heaviness for your prodigal younger brother, who is still
feeding swine. 3. It will save you from any difficulty about
forgiving other people. Love mankind with all your soul, and you
will feel no difficulty in exercising patience, forbearance, and
forgiveness. 4. It will keep you from very many other griefs. You
will be delivered from petty worries if you are concerned about the
souls of men. 5. It will put you much upon prayer. That is the
right style of prayingwhen a man prays because he has an awful
weight upon him, and pray he must. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Concern for
kindred I. Its true expression. 1. Heartfelt compassion. 2. Earnest
prayer. 3. Self-sacrificing zeal. II. Its powerful motives. 1. Our
brethren. 2. Specially privileged. 3. Dear to Christ. (J. Lyth,
D.D.)
12. Home and foreign missions The fervency of affection
professed by Paul in this passage is all in behalf of his own
countrymen; and yet none more zealous than he in the labours of a
Christian missionary among the distant countries of the world. What
gives more importance to this remark is the tendency in our own day
to place these two causes in opposition to each other. It might
serve as a useful corrective to look at Paul and at the one
comprehensive affection which actuated his bosom, cleaving with all
the devotedness of a thorough patriot to the families of his own
land; and yet carrying him beyond the limits of a contracted
patriotism among all the families of the earth. The truth is, that
home and foreign Christianity, instead of acting upon the heart
like two forces in opposite directions, draw both the same way, so
that he who has been carried forward to the largest sacrifices in
behalf of the one, is the readiest for like sacrifices in behalf of
the other. The friends of the near being also, as they have
opportunity, the most prompt and liberal in their friendship to the
distant enterprise; recognising in man, wherever he is to be found,
the same wandering outcast from the light and love of heaven, and
the same befitting subject for the offers of a free salvation. We
cannot therefore sympathise with those who affect an indifference
to the Christianisation of the heathen till the work of
Christianisation shall have been completed at our own door. Let
them be careful, lest there do not lurk within them a like
indifference to both, lest the feelings and the principles of all
true philanthropy lie asleep in their bosoms; and they, unlike to
Paul, who found room for the utmost affection towards the spiritual
well-being of his own kinsfolk and the utmost activity among the
aliens and idolaters of far distant lands, shall be convicted of
deep insensibility to the concerns of the soul, of utter blindness
to the worth of eternity. (T. Chalmers, D.D.) Earnestness in
promoting the salvation of others We were going from Camden to
Philadelphia some years ago very late at night after a meeting. It
was a cold winter night, and we stood on the deck of the
ferry-boat, impatient to get ashore. Before the boat came to the
wharf, a man who stood on the outside of the chains slipped and
dropped into the water. It is the only man that we ever saw
overboard. It was a fearful night. The icicles had frozen on the
wharf, and they had frozen on the steamer. The question was how to
get the man up. The ropes were lowered, and we all stood with
feverish anxiety lest the man should not be able to grasp the
ropes, and when he grasped it and was pulled up on to the deck, and
we saw he was safe, although we had never seen him before, how we
congratulated him! A life saved! Have we the same earnestness about
getting men out of spiritual peril? Do we not go up and down in our
prayer-meetings, and our Christian work, coldly saying, Yes, there
is a great deal of sin in the world; men ought to do better. I wish
the people would become Christians. I think it is high time that
men attended to their eternal interests; and five minutes after we
put our head on the pillow we are sound asleep, or from that
consideration we pass out in five minutes into the utmost
mirthfulness, and have forgotten it all. Meanwhile there is a whole
race overboard. How few hands are stretched out to lift men out of
the flood! how few prayers offered! how earnest opportunities! how
little earnest Christian work! (T. De Witt Talmage.)
13. EBC 1-33, THE SORROWFUL PROBLEM: JEWISH UNBELIEF; DIVINE
SOVEREIGNTY WE may well think that again there was silence awhile
in that Corinthian chamber, when Tertius had duly inscribed the
last words we have studied. A "silence in heaven" follows, in the
Apocalypse, (Rev_8:1) the vision of the white hosts of the
redeemed, gathered at last, in their eternal jubilation, before the
throne of the Lamb. A silence in the soul is the fittest immediate
sequel to such a revelation of grace and glory as has passed before
us here. And did not the man whose work it was to utter it, and
whose personal experience was as it were the informing soul of the
whole argument of the Epistle from the first, and not least in this
last sacred paean of faith, keep silence when he had done, hushed
and tired by this "exceeding weight" of grace and glory? But he has
a great deal more to say to the Romans, and in due time the pen
obeys the voice again. What will the next theme be? It will be a
pathetic and significant contrast to the last; a lament, a
discussion, an instruction, and then a prophecy, about not himself
and his happy fellow saints, but poor self-blinded unbelieving
Israel. The occurrence of that subject exactly, here is true to the
inmost nature of the Gospel. The Apostle has just been counting up
the wealth of salvation, and claiming it all, as present and
eternal property, for himself and his brethren in the Lord.
Justifying Righteousness, Liberty from sin in Christ, the
Indwelling Spirit, electing Love, coming and certain Glory, all
have been recounted, and asserted, and embraced. "Is it selfish,"
this great joy of possession and prospect? Let those say so who see
these things only from outside. Make proof of what they are in
their interior, enter into them, learn yourself what it is to have
peace with God, to receive the Spirit, to expect the eternal glory;
and you will find that nothing is so sure to expand the heart
towards other men as the personal reception into it of the Truth
and Life of God in Christ. It is possible to hold a true creed-and
to be spiritually hard anal selfish. But is it possible so to
be-when not only the creed is held, but the Lord of it, its Heart
and Life, is received with wonder and great joy? The man whose
certainties, whose riches, whose freedom, are all consciously "in
Him," cannot but love his neighbour, and long that he too should
come into "the secret of the Lord." So St. Paul, just at this point
of the Epistle, turns with a peculiar intensity of grief and
yearning towards the Israel which he had once led, and now had
left, because they would not come with him to Christ. His natural
and his spiritual sympathies all alike go out to this
self-afflicting people, so privileged, so divinely loved, and now
so blind. Oh, that he could offer any sacrifice that would bring
them reconciled, humbled, happy, to the feet of the true Christ!
Oh, that they might see the fallacy of their own way of salvation,
and submit to the way of Christ, taking His yoke, and finding rest
to their souls! Why do they not do it? Why does not the light which
convinced him shine on them! Why should not the whole Sanhedrin
say, "Lord, what wouldst Thou have us to do?" Why does not the fair
beauty of the Son of God make them too "count all things but loss"
for Him? Why do not the voices of the Prophets prove to them, as
they do now to Paul, absolutely convincing of the historical as
well as spiritual claims of the Man of Calvary? Has the promise
failed? Has God done with the race to which He guaranteed such a
perpetuity of blessing? No, that cannot be. He looks again, and he
sees in the whole past a long warning that, while an outer circle
of benefits might affect the nation, the inner circle, the light
and life of God indeed, embraced "a remnant" only; even from the
day when Isaac and not Ishmael was made heir of Abraham. And then
he ponders the impenetrable mystery of the relation of the Infinite
Will to human wills; he remembers how, in a way whose full reasons
are unknowable, (but they are good, for they are in
14. God,) the Infinite Will has to do with our willing; genuine
and responsible though our willing is. And before that opaque veil
he rests. He knows that only righteousness and love are behind it;
but he knows that it is a veil, and that in front of it mans
thought must cease and be silent. Sin is altogether mans fault. But
when man turns from sin it is all Gods mercy, free, special,
distinguishing. Be silent, and trust Him, O man whom He has made.
Remember, He has made thee. It is not only that He is greater than
thou, or stronger; but He has made thee. Be reasonably willing to
trust, out of sight, the reasons of thy Maker. Then he turns again
with new regrets and yearnings to the thought of that wonderful
Gospel which was meant for Israel and for the world, but which
Israel rejected, and now would fain check on its way to the world.
Lastly, he recalls the future, still full of eternal promises for
the chosen race, and through them full of blessings for the world;
till he rises at length from perplexity and anguish, and the wreck
of once eager expectations, into that great Doxology in which he
blesses the Eternal Sovereign for the very mystery of His ways, and
adores Him because He is His own eternal End. Truth I speak in
Christ, speaking as the member of the All-Truthful; I do not lie,
my conscience, in the Holy Ghost, informed and governed by Him,
bearing me concurrent witness-the soul within affirming to itself
the word spoken without to others-that I have great grief, and my
heart has incessant pain, yes, the heart in which (Rom_5:5) the
Spirit has "poured out" Gods love and joy; there is room for both
experiences in its human depths. For I was wishing, I myself, to be
anathema from Christ, to be devoted to eternal separation from Him;
awful dream of uttermost sacrifice, made impossible only because it
would mean self-robbery from the Lord who had bought him; a
spiritual suicide by sin- for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen
flesh-wise. For they are ( ) Israelites, bearers of the glorious
theocratic name, sons of the "Prince with" Gen_32:28; theirs is the
adoption, the call to be Jehovahs own filial race, "His son, His
firstborn" (Exo_4:22) of the peoples; and the glory, the Shechinah
of the Eternal Presence, sacramentally seen in Tabernacle and
Temple, spiritually spread over the race; and the covenants, with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Levi, and Moses, and Aaron, and Phinehas,
and David; and the Legislation, the Holy Moral Code, and the
Ritual, with its divinely ordered symbolism, that vast Parable of
Christ, and the Promises, of "the pleasant land," and the perpetual
favour, and the coming Lord; theirs are the Fathers, patriarchs,
and priests, and kings; and out of them, as to what is flesh-wise,
is the Christ, -He who is over all things, God, blessed to all
eternity. Amen. It is indeed a splendid roll of honours, recited
over this race "separate among the nations," a race which today as
much as ever remains the enigma of history, to be solved only by
Revelation. "The Jews, your Majesty," was the reply of Frederick
the Greats old believing courtier, when asked with a smile for the
credentials of the Bible; the short answer silenced the
Encyclopaedist King. It is indeed a riddle, made of indissoluble
facts, this people everywhere dispersed, yet everywhere individual;
scribes of a Book which has profoundly influenced mankind, and
which is recognised by the most various races as an august and
lawful claimant to be divine, yet themselves, in so many aspects,
provincial to the heart; historians of their own glories, but at
least equally of their own unworthiness and disgrace; transmitters
of predictions which may be slighted, but can never, as a whole, be
explained away, yet obstinate deniers of their majestic fulfilment
in the Lord of Christendom; human in every fault and imperfection,
yet so concerned in bringing to man the message of the Divine that
Jesus Himself said of them, "Salvation (Joh_4:22) comes from the
Jews." On this wonderful race this its most illustrious member
(after his Lord) here fixes his eyes, full of tears. He sees their
glories pass before him-and then
15. realises the spiritual squalor and misery of their
rejection of the Christ of God. He groans, and in real agony asks
how it can be. One thing only cannot be; the promises have not
failed; there has been no failure in the Promiser. What may seem
such is rather mans misreading of the promise. But it is not as
though the word of God has been thrown out, that "word" whose
divine honour was dearer to him than even that of his people. For
not all who come from Israel constitute Israel; nor, because they
are seed of Abraham, are they all his children, in the sense of
family life and rights; but "In Isaac shall a seed be called thee";
(Gen_21:12) Isaac, and not any son of thy body begotten, is father
of those whom thou shalt claim as thy covenant race. That is to
say, not the children of his flesh are the children of his () God;
no, the children of the promise, indicated and limited by its
developed terms, are reckoned as seed. For of the promise this was
the word. (Gen_18:10; Gen_18:14) "According to this time I will
come, and Sarah, she and not any spouse of thine; no Hagar, no
Keturah, but Sarah, shall have a son." And the law of limitations
did not stop there, but contracted yet again the stream of even
physical filiation: Nor only so, but Rebecca too-being with child,
with twin children, of one husband-no problem of complex parentage,
as with Abraham, occurring here-even of Isaac our father, just
named as the selected heir-(for it was while they were not yet
born, while they had not yet shown any conduct good or bad, that
the choice-wise purpose of God might remain, sole and sovereign,
not based on works, but wholly on the Caller)-it was said to her,
(Gen_25:23) "The greater shall be bondman to the less." As it
stands written, in the prophets message a millennium later, "Jacob
I loved, but Esau I hated," I repudiated him as heir. So the limit
has run always along with the promise. Ishmael is Abrahams son, yet
not his son. Esau is Isaacs son, yet not his son. And though we
trace in Ishmael and in Esau, as they grow, characteristics which
may seem to explain the limitation, this will not really do. For
the chosen one in each case has his conspicuous unfavourable
characteristics too. And the whole tone of the record (not to speak
of this its apostolic interpretation) looks towards mystery, not
explanation. Esaus "profanity" was the concurrent occasion, not the
cause, of the choice of Jacob. The reason of the choice lay in the
depths of God, that World "dark with excess of bright." All is well
there, but not the less all is unknown. So we are led up to the
shut door of the sanctuary of Gods Choice. Touch it; it is
adamantine, and it is fast locked. No blind Destiny has turned the
key, and lost it. No inaccessible Tyrant sits within, playing to
himself both sides of a game of fate, and indifferent to the cry of
the soul. The Key Bearer, whose Name is engraved on the portal, is
"He that liveth, and was dead, and is alive for evermore".
(Rev_1:18) And if you listen you will hear words within, like the
soft deep voice of many waters, yet of an eternal Heart; "I am that
I am; I will that I will; trust Me." But the door is locked; and
the Voice is mystery. Ah, what agonies have been felt in human
souls, as men have looked at that gate, and pondered the unknown
interior! The Eternal knows, with infinite kindness and sympathy,
the pain unspeakable which can beset the creature when it wrestles
with His Eternity, and tries to clasp it with both hands, and to
say that "that is all!" We do not find in Scripture, surely,
anything like an anthema for that awful sense of the unknown which
can gather on the soul drawn-irresistibly as it sometimes seems to
be-into the problems of the Choice of God, and oppressed as with
"the weight of all the seas upon it," by the very questions stated
presently here by the Apostle. The Lord knoweth, not only His will,
but our heart, in these matters. And where He entirely declines to
explain (surely because we are not yet of age to understand Him if
He did) He yet shows us Jesus, and bids us meet the silence of the
mystery with the silence of a personal trust in the personal
16. Character revealed in Him. In something of such stillness
shall we approach the paragraph now to follow? Shall we listen, not
to explain away, not even over much to explain, but to submit, with
a submission which is not a suppressed resentment but an entire
reliance? We shall find that the whole matter, in its practical
aspect, has a voice articulate enough for the soul which sees
Christ, and believes on Him. It says to that soul, "Who maketh thee
to differ? Who hath fashioned thee to honour? Why art thou not now,
as once, guiltily rejecting Christ, or, what is the same,
postponing Him? Thank Him who has compelled thee, yet without
violation of thyself, to come in. See in thy choice of Him His
mercy on thee. And now, fall at His feet, to bless Him, to serve
Him, and to trust Him. Think ill of thyself. Think reverently of
others. And remember (the Infinite, who has chosen thee, says it),
He willeth not the death of a sinner, He loved the world, He bids
thee to tell it that He loves it, to tell it that He is Love." Now
we listen. With a look which speaks awe, but not misgiving,
disclosing past tempests of doubt, but now a rest of faith, the
Apostle dictates again: What therefore shall we say? Is there
injustice at Gods bar? Away with the thought. The thing is, in the
deepest sense, unthinkable. God, the God of Revelation, the God of
Christ, is a Being who, if unjust-"ceases to be," "denies Himself."
But the thought that His reasons for some given action should be,
at least to us now, absolute mystery, He being the Infinite
Personality, is not unthinkable at all. And in such a case it is
not unreasonable, but the deepest reason, to ask for no more than
His articulate guarantee, so to speak, that the mystery is fact;
that He is conscious of it, alive to it (speaking humanly); and
that He avows it as His will. For when God, the God of Christ, bids
us "take His will for it," it is a different thing from an attempt,
however powerful, to frighten us into silence. It is a reminder Who
He is who speaks; the Being who is kindred to us, who is in
relations with us, who loved us, but who also has absolutely made
us, and cannot (because we are sheer products of His will) make us
so much His equals as to tell us all. So the Apostle proceeds with
a "for" whose bearing we have thus already indicated: For to Moses
he says, (Exo_34:19) in the dark sanctuary of Sinai, "I shall pity
whomsoever I do pity, and compassionate whomsoever I do
compassionate"; My account of My saving action shall stop there: It
appears therefore that it, the ultimate account of salvation, is
not of (as the effect is "of" the first cause) the wilier, nor of
the runner, the carrier of willing into work, but of the Pitier -
God. For the Scripture says (Exo_10:16) to Pharaoh, that large
example of defiant human sin, real and guilty, but also,
concurrently, of the sovereign Choice which sentenced him to go his
own way, and used him as a beacon at its end, "For this very
purpose I raised thee up, made thee stand, even beneath the
Plagues, that I might display in thee My power, and that My Name,
as of the just God who strikes down the proud, might be told far
and wide in all the earth." Pharaohs was a case of concurrent
phenomena. A man was there on the one hand, willingly,
deliberately, and most guiltily, battling with right, and rightly
bringing ruin on his own head, wholly of himself. God was there on
the other hand, making that man a monument not of grace but of
judgment. And that side, that line, is isolated here, and treated
as if it were all. It appears then that whom He pleases, He pities,
and whom He pleases, He hardens, in that sense in which He
"hardened Pharaohs heart," "made it stiff," "made it heavy," "made
it harsh"-by sentencing it to have its own way. Yes, thus "it
appears." And beyond that inference we can take no step of thought
but this-that the Subject of that mysterious "will," He who thus
"pleases," and "pities," and "hardens," is no other than the God of
Jesus Christ. He may be, not only submitted to, but trusted, in
that unknowable
17. sovereignty of His will. Yet listen to the question which
speaks out the problem of all hearts: "You will say to Me
therefore, Why does He still, after such an avowal of His
sovereignty, softening this heart, hardening that, why does He
still find fault?" Ah, why? For His act of will who has withstood?
(Nay, you have withstood His will, and so have I Not one word of
the argument has contradicted the primary fact of our will, nor
therefore our responsibility. But this he does not bring in here.)
Nay, rather, rather than take such an attitude of narrow and
helpless logic, think deeper; nay, rather, O man, O mere human
being, you-who are you, who are answering back to your God? Shall
the thing formed say to its Former, Why did you make me like this?
Has not the potter authority over his clay, out of the same kneaded
mass to make this vessel for honour, but that for dishonour? But if
God, being pleased to demonstrate His wrath, and to evidence what
He can do-what will St. Paul go on to say? That the Eternal, being
thus "pleased," created responsible beings on purpose to destroy
them, gave them personality, and then compelled them to transgress?
No, he does not say so. The sternly simple illustration, in itself
one of the least relieved utterances in the whole Scripture-that
dread Potter and his kneaded Clay!-gives way, in its application,
to a statement of the work of God on man full of significance in
its variation. Here are indeed the "vessels" still; and the vessels
"for honour" are such because of "mercy," and His own hand has
"prepared them for glory." And there are the vessels "for
dishonour," and in a sense of awful mystery they are such because
of "wrath." But the "wrath" of the Holy One can fall only upon
demerit; so these "vessels" have merited His displeasure of
themselves. And they are "prepared for ruin"; but where is any
mention of His hand preparing them? And meanwhile He "bears them in
much longsuffering." The mystery is there, impenetrable as ever,
when we try to pierce behind "His will." But on every side it is
limited and qualified by facts which witness to the compassions of
the Infinite Sovereign even in His judgments, and remind us that
sin is altogether "of" the creature. So we take up the words where
we dropped them above: What if He bore, (the tense throws us
forward into eternity, to look back thence on His ways in time,) in
much longsuffering, vessels of wrath, adjusted for ruin? And acted
otherwise with others, that He might evidence the wealth of His
glory, the resources of His inmost Character, poured upon vessels
of pity, which He prepared in advance for glory, by the processes
of justifying and hallowing grace-whom in fact He called,
effectually, in their conversion, even us, not only from the Jews,
but also from the Gentiles? For while the lineal Israel, with its
privilege and its apparent failure, is here first in view, there
lies behind it the phenomenon of "the Israel of God," the
heaven-born heirs of the Fathers, a race not of blood, but of the
Spirit. The great Promise, all the while, had set towards that
Israel as its final scope; and now he gives proof from the Prophets
that this intention was at least half revealed all along the line
of revelation. As actually in our Hosea (Hos_2:23, Heb_2:5) in the
book we know as such, He says, "I will call what was not My people,
My people; and the not-beloved one, beloved. And [another Hosean
oracle, in line with the first] it shall be, in the place where it
was said to them, Not My people are ye, there they shall be called
sons of the living God." In both places the first incidence of the
words is on the restoration of the Ten Tribes to covenant
blessings. But the Apostle, in the Spirit, sees an ultimate and
satisfying reference to a vaster application of the same principle;
the bringing of the rebelling and banished ones of all mankind into
covenant and blessing. Meanwhile the Prophets who foretell that
great ingathering indicate with equal solemnity the spiritual
failure of all but a fraction of the lineal heirs of promise. But
Isaiah cries over Israel, "If the number of the sons of Israel
should be as the sand of the sea, the remnant only shall be saved;
for as one who completes and cuts short will the Lord do His work
upon the earth." Here again is a first and second incidence of
the
18. prophecy. In every stage of the history of Sin and
Redemption the Apostle, in the Spirit, sees an embryo of the great
Development. So, in the woefully limited numbers of the Exiles who
returned from the old captivity he sees an embodied prophecy of the
fewness of the sons of Israel who shall return from the exile of
incredulity to their, true Messiah. And as Isaiah (Isa_1:9) has
foretold, so it is; "Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a seed,
like Sodom we had become, and to Gomorrah we had been resembled."
Such was the mystery of the facts, alike in the older and in the
later story of Israel. A remnant, still a remnant, not the masses,
entered upon an inheritance of such ample provision, and so
sincerely offered. And behind this lay the insoluble shadow within
which is concealed the relation of the Infinite Will to the wills
of men. But also, in front of the phenomenon, concealed by no
shadow save that which is cast by human sin, the Apostle sees and
records the reasons, as they reside in the human will, of this
"salvation of a remnant." The promises of God, all along, and
supremely now in Christ, had been conditioned (it was in the nature
of spiritual things that it should be so) by submission to His way
of fulfilment. The golden gift was there, in the most generous of
hands, stretched out to give. But it could be put only into a
recipient hand open and empty. It could be taken only by submissive
and self-forgetting faith. And man, in his fall, had twisted his
will out of gear for such an action. Was it wonderful that, by his
own fault, he failed to receive? What therefore shall we say? Why,
that the Gentiles, though they did not pursue righteousness, though
no Oracle had set them on the track of a true divine acceptance and
salvation, achieved righteousness, grasped it when once revealed,
but the righteousness that results on faith; but Israel, pursuing a
law of righteousness, aiming at what is, for fallen man, the
impossible goal, a perfect meeting of the Laws one principle of
acceptance, "This do and thou shalt live," did not attain that law;
that is to say, practically, as we now review their story of vain
efforts in the line of self, did not attain the acceptance to which
that law was to be the avenue. The Pharisee as such, the Pharisee
Saul of Tarsus for example, neither had peace with God, nor dared
to think he had, in the depth of his soul. He knew enough of the
divine ideal to be hopelessly uneasy about his realisation of it.
He could say, stiffly enough, "God, I thank Thee"; (Luk_18:11;
Luk_18:14) but he "went down to his house" unhappy, unsatisfied,
unjustified. On what account? Because it was not of faith, but as
of works; in the unquiet dream that man must, and could, work up
the score of merit to a valid claim. They stumbled on the Stone of
their stumbling; as it stands written, (Isa_8:14; Isa_28:16) in a
passage where the great perpetual Promise is in view, and where the
blind people are seen rejecting it as their foothold in favour of
policy, or of formalism, Behold, I place in Sion, in the very
centre of light and privilege, a Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of
upsetting; and he who confides in Him, (or, perhaps, in it,) he who
rests on it, on Him, shall not be put to shame. One great Rabbi at
least, Rashi, of the twelfth century, bears witness to the mind of
the Jewish Church upon the significance of that mystic Rock.
"Behold," so runs his interpretation, "I have established a King, a
Messiah, who shall be in Zion a stone of proving." Was ever
prophecy more profoundly verified in event? Not for the lineal
Israel only, but for Man, the King Messiah is, as ever, the Stone
of either stumbling or foundation. He is, as ever, "a Sign spoken
against." He is, as ever, the Rock of Ages, where the believing
sinner hides, and rests, and builds, "Below the storm-mark of the
sky, Above the flood-mark of the deep." Have we known what it is to
stumble over Him? "We will not have this Man to reign over us"; "We
were never in bondage to any man; who is He that He should set us
free?" And
19. are we now lifted by a Hand of omnipotent kindness to a
place deep in His clefts, safe on His summit, "knowing nothing" for
the peace of conscience, the satisfaction of thought, the
liberation of the will, the abolition of death, "but Jesus Christ,
and Him crucified"? Then let us think with always humbled sympathy
of those who, for whatever reason, still "forsake their, own
mercy". (Jon_2:8) And let us inform them where we are, and how we
are here, and that "the ground is good." And for ourselves, that we
may do this the better, let us often read again the simple, strong
assurance which closes this chapter of mysteries; "He who confides
in Him shall not be put to shame"; "shall not be disappointed";
"shall not," in the vivid phrase of the Hebrew itself, "make
haste." No, we shall not "make haste." From that safe Place no
hurried retreat shall ever need to be beaten. That Fortress cannot
be stormed; it cannot be surprised; it cannot crumble. For "IT is
HE"; the Son, the Lamb, of God; the sinners everlasting
Righteousness, the believers unfailing Source of peace, of purity,
and of power. DETACHED NOTE TO Rom_9:5 THE following is
transcribed, with a few modifications, from the writers Commentary
on the Epistle in "The Cambridge Bible": "[Who is over all, God
blessed forever.] The Greek may, with more or less facility, be
translated (1) as in A.V; or (2) who is God over all, etc.; or (3)
blessed forever be He who is God over all (i.e., the Eternal
Father) If we adopt (3) we take the Apostle to be led, by the
mention of the Incarnation, to utter a sudden and solemn doxology
to the God who gave that crowning mercy. In favour of this it is
urged (by some entirely orthodox commentators, as H.A.W. Meyer)
that St. Paul nowhere else styles the Lord simply God, but rather
the Son of God, etc. By this they do not mean to detract from the
Lords Deity; but they maintain that St. Paul always so states that
Deity, under Divine guidance, as to mark the Subordination of the
Son-that Subordination which is not a difference of Nature, Power,
or Eternity, but of Order; just such as is marked by the simple but
profound words Father and Son." "But on the other hand there is
Tit_2:13, where the Greek is (at least) perfectly capable of the
rendering, our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. There is
Act_20:28, where the evidence is very strong for the reading,
retained by the R.V (text) the Church of God, which He purchased
with His own blood. And if St. John is to be taken to report words
exactly, in his narrative of the Resurrection, in an incident whose
point is deeply connected with verbal precision, we have one of the
first Apostles, within eight days of the Resurrection, addressing
the Risen Lord (Joh_20:28) as my God. (We call attention to this as
against the contention that only the latest developments of
inspiration, represented in, e.g., St. Johns Preamble to his
Gospel, show us Christ called explicitly God.)" "If it is divinely
true that the Word is God, it is surely far from wonderful if here
and there, in peculiar connections, [St. Paul] should so speak of
Christ, even though guided to keep another phase of the truth
habitually in view." "Now, beyond all fair question, the Greek here
is quite naturally rendered as in the A.V; had it not been for
historical controversy, probably, no other rendering would have
been suggested. And lastly, and what is important, the context far
rather suggests a lament (over the fall of Israel) than an
ascription of praise. And what is most significant of all, it
pointedly suggests some explicit allusion to the super-human Nature
of Christ, by the words, according to the flesh. But if there is
such an allusion, then it must lie in the words, over all,
God."
20. BARCLAY, THE PROBLEM OF THE JEWS In Rom. 9-11 Paul tries to
deal with one of the most bewildering problems that the Church has
to solve--the problem of the Jews. They were God's chosen people;
they had had a unique place in God's purposes; and yet when God's
Son had come into the world they had rejected him and crucified
him. How is this tragic paradox to be explained? That is the
problem with which Paul seeks to deal in these chapters. They are
complicated and difficult, and, before we begin to study them in
detail, it will be well to set out the broad lines of the solution
which Paul presented. One thing we must note before we begin to
disentangle Paul's thought--the chapters were written not in anger
but in heartbreak. He could never forget that he was a Jew and he
would gladly have laid down his own life if, by so doing, he could
have brought his brethren to Jesus Christ. Paul never denies that
the Jews were the chosen people. God adopted them as his own; he
gave them the covenants and the service of the Temple and the law;
he gave them the presence of his own glory; he gave them the
patriarchs. Above all Jesus was a Jew. The special place of the
Jews in God's economy of salvation Paul accepts as an axiom and as
the starting-point of the whole problem. The first point which he
makes is this--it is true that the Jews as a nation rejected and
crucified Jesus, but it is also true, that not all the Jews
rejected him; some received him and believed in him, for all the
early followers of Jesus were Jews. Paul then looks back on history
and insists that racial descent from Abraham does not make a Jew.
Over and over again in Jewish history there was in God's ways a
process of selection--Paul calls it election--whereby some of those
who were racial descendants of Abraham were chosen and some
rejected. In the case of Abraham, Isaac, the son born according to
the promise of God, was chosen, but Ishmael, the son born of purely
natural desire, was not. In the case of Isaac, his son Jacob was
chosen, but Esau, Jacob's twin, was not. This selection had nothing
to do with merit; it was the work entirely of God's electing wisdom
and power. Further, the real chosen people never lay in the whole
nation; it always lay in the righteous remnant, the few who were
true to God when all others denied him. It was so in the days of
Elijah, when seven thousand remained faithful to God after the rest
of the nation had gone after Baal. It was an essential part of the
teaching of Isaiah, who said: "Though the number of the children of
Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant Of them will be
saved" (Isa. 10:22; Rom. 9:27). Paul's first point is that at no
time were the whole people the chosen people. There was always
selection, election, on the part of God.
21. Is it fair of God to elect some and to reject others? And,
if some men are elected and others are rejected through no virtue
or fault of their own, how can you blame them if they reject
Christ, and how can you praise them if they accept him? Here Paul
uses an argument at which the mind staggers, and from which we
quite properly recoil. Bluntly, it is that God can do what he likes
and that man has no right whatever to question his decisions,
however inscrutable they may be. The clay cannot talk back to the
potter. A craftsman may make two vessels, one for an honourable
purpose and another for a menial purpose; the vessels have nothing
whatever to do with it. That, said Paul, is what God has a right to
do with men. He quotes the instance of Pharaoh (Rom. 9:17) and says
that he was brought on to the stage of history simply to be the
instrument through which God's avenging power was demonstrated. In
any event, the people of Israel had been forewarned of the election
of the Gentiles and of their own rejection, for, did not the
prophet Hosea write: "Those who were not my people I will call `my
people', and her who was not beloved I will call `my beloved'"
(Hos. 1:10; Rom. 9:25). However, this rejection of Israel was not
callous and haphazard. The door was shut to the Jews that it might
be opened to the Gentiles. God hardened the hearts of the Jews and
blinded their eyes with the ultimate purpose of opening a way for
the Gentiles into the faith. Here is a strange and terrible
argument. Stripped of all its non-essentials, it is that God can do
what he likes with any man or nation. and that he deliberately
darkened the minds and shut the eyes of the Jews in order that the
Gentiles might come in. What was the fundamental mistake of the
Jews? This may seem a curious question to ask in view of what we
have just said. But, paradoxically, Paul holds that though the
rejection of the Jews was the work of God, it need never have
happened. He cannot get rid of the eternal paradox--nor does he
desire to--that at one and the same time all is of God and man has
free-will. The fundamental mistake of the Jews was that they tried
to get into a right relationship with God through their own
efforts. They tried to earn salvation; whereas the Gentiles simply
accepted the offer of God in perfect trust. The Jews should have
known that the only way to God was the way of faith and that human
achievement led nowhere. Did not Isaiah say: "No one who believes
in him will be put to shame"? (Isa. 28:16; Rom. 10:11.) Did not
Joel say: "Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be
saved"? (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13.) True, no man can have faith until
he hears the offer of God; but to the Jews that offer was made.
They clung to the way of human achievement through obedience to the
law; they staked everything on works, but they should have known
that the way to God was the way of faith, for the prophets had told
them so. Once again it is to be stressed that all this was God's
arrangement; and that it was so arranged to allow the Gentiles to
come in. Paul therefore turns to the Gentiles.
22. He orders them to have no pride. They are in the position
of wild olive shoots which have been grafted into a garden olive
tree. They did not achieve their own salvation any more than the
Jews did; in point of fact they are dependent on the Jews; they are
only engrafted branches; the root and the stem are still the chosen
people. The fact of their own election and the fact of the
rejection of the Jews are not to produce pride in Gentile hearts.
If that happens, rejection can and will happen to them. Is this the
end? Far from it. It is God's purpose that the Jews will be moved
to envy at the relationship of the Gentiles to him and that they
will ask to be admitted to it themselves. Did not Moses say: "I
make you jealous of those who are not a nation; with a foolish
nation I will make you angry"? (Deut. 32:21; Rom. 10:19.) In the
end the Gentiles will be the very instrument by which the Jews will
be saved. "And so all Israel will be saved" (Rom. 11:26). So Paul
comes to the end of the argument. We may summarily set out its
steps. (i) Israel is the chosen people. (ii) To be a member of
Israel means more than racial descent. There has always been
election within the nation; and the best of the nation has always
been the remnant who were faithful. (iii) This selection by God is
not unfair, for he has the right to do what he likes. (iv) God did
harden the hearts of the Jews, but only to open the door to the
Gentiles. (v) Israel's mistake was dependence on human achievement
founded on the law; the necessary approach to God is that of the
totally trusting heart. (vi) The Gentiles must have no pride for
they are only wild olives grafted into the true olive stock. They
must remember that. (vii) This is not the end; the Jews will be so
moved to wondering envy at the privilege that the Gentiles have
received that in the end they will be brought in by them.
23. (viii) So in the very end all, Jew and Gentile, will be
saved. The glory is in the end of Paul's argument. He began by
saying that some were elected to reception and some to rejection.
In the end he comes to say that it is God's will that all men
should be saved. THE TRAGIC FAILURE Rom. 9:1-6 I tell you the truth
as one who is united to Christ is bound to do. I do not lie. My
conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit when I say that
my grief is great and there is unceasing anguish in my heart. I
could pray that I myself might be accursed so that I was completely
separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen as
far as human relationship goes. For my kinsmen are the Israelites,
and theirs is the special sonship of God, and the glory and the
covenants and the giving of the law and the worship of the Temple
and the promises. To them the fathers belong. And from them, on his
human side, came the Anointed One of God. Blessed for ever be the
God who is over all! Amen. Paul begins his attempt to explain the
Jewish rejection of Jesus Christ. He begins, not in anger, but in
sorrow. Here is no tempest of anger and no outbreak of enraged
condemnation; here is the poignant sorrow of the broken heart. Paul
was like the God whom he loved and served--he hated the sin. but he
loved the sinner. No man will ever even begin to try to save men
unless he first loves them. Paul sees the Jews, not as people to be
lashed with anger, but as people to be yearned over with longing
love. Willingly Paul would have laid down his life if he could have
won the Jews for Christ. It may be that his thoughts were going
back to one of the greatest episodes in Jewish history. When Moses
went up the mountain to receive the law from the hands of God, the
people who had been left below sinned by making the golden calf and
worshipping it. God was wreath with them; and then Moses prayed the
great prayer: "Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--and if not,
blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written"
(Exo.32:32). Paul says that for the sake of his brethren he would
consent to be accursed if it would do any good. The word he uses is
anathema and it is a terrible word. A thing which was anathema was
under the ban; it was devoted to God for utter destruction. When a
heathen city was taken, everything in it was devoted to utter
destruction, for it was polluted (Deut. 3:6; Deut. 2:34; Josh.
6:17; Josh. 7:1-26). If
24. a man tried to lure Israel away from the worship of the
true God, he was pitilessly condemned to utter destruction (Deut.
13:8-11). The dearest thing in all Paul's life was the fact that
nothing could separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus;
but, if it would do anything to save his brethren, he would even
accept banishment from God. Here again is the great truth that the
man who would save the sinner must love him. When a son or a
daughter has done something wrong and incurred punishment, many a
father and a mother would gladly bear that punishment if only they
could. As Myers makes Paul say in his poem Saint Paul: "Then with a
thrill the intolerable craving, Shivers throughout me like a
trumpet call; O to save these, to perish for their saving-- Die for
their life, be offered for them all." That is what God felt; that
is what Paul felt; and that is what we must feel. Paul did not for
a moment deny the place of the Jews in the economy of God. He
enumerates their privileges. (i) In a special sense they were
children of God, specially chosen, specially adopted into the
family of God. "You are the sons of the Lord your God" (Deut.
14:1). "Is not he your father, who created you?" (Deut. 32:6).
"Israel is my firstborn son" (Exo. 4:22). "When Israel was a child,
I loved him, and out of Egypt called my son" (Hos. 11:1). The Bible
is full of this idea of the special sonship of Israel and of
Israel's refusal to accept it in the fullest sense. Boreham
somewhere tells how he was visiting in a friend's house when he was
a boy. There was one room into which it was forbidden to go. One
day he was opposite the room when the door opened and inside he saw
a boy of his own age, but in a dreadful state of animal idiocy. He
saw the boy's mother go to his side. She must have seen young
Boreham in all his health and sanity and then looked at her own
son; and the comparison must have pierced her heart. He saw her
kneel by the idiot boy's bedside and heard her cry out in a kind of
anguish: "I've fed you and clothed you and loved you--and you've
never known me." That was what God might have said to Israel--only
in this case it was worse, for Israel's rejection was deliberate
and open-eyed. It is a terrible thing to break the heart of God.
(ii) Israel had the glory. The shekinah or kaboth occurs again and
again in Israel's history. It was the divine splendour of light
which descended when God was
25. visiting his people (Exo.16:10; Exo.24:16-17; Exo.29:43;
Exo.33:18-22). Israel had seen the glory of God and yet had
rejected him. To us it has been given to see the glory of God's
love and mercy in the face of Jesus Christ; it is a terrible thing
if we then choose the ways of earth. (iii) Israel had the
covenants. A covenant is a relationship entered into between two
people, a bargain for mutual profit, an engagement for mutual
friendship. Again and again God had approached the people of Israel
and entered into a special relationship with them. He did so with
Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob and upon Mount Sinai when he gave
the law. Irenaeus distinguishes four great occasions when God
entered into agreement with men. The first was the covenant with
Noah after the flood, and the sign was the rainbow in the heavens
which stood for God's promise that the floods would not come again.
The second was the covenant with Abraham and its sign was the sign
of circumcision. The third was the covenant with the nation entered
into on Mount Sinai and its basis was the law. The fourth is the
new covenant in Jesus Christ. It is an amazing thing to think of
God approaching men and entering into a pledged relationship with
them. It is the simple truth that God has never left men alone. He
did not make one approach and then abandon them. He has made
approach after approach; and he still makes approach after approach
to the individual human soul. He stands at the door and knocks; and
it is the awful responsibility of human will that man can refuse to
open. (iv) They had the law. Israel could never plead ignorance of
God's will; God had told them what he desired them to do. If they
sinned, they sinned in knowledge and not in ignorance, and the sin
of knowledge is the sin against the light which is worst of all.
(v) They had the worship of the Temple. Worship is in essence the
approach of the soul to God; and God in the Temple worship had
given to the Jews a special road of approach to himself. If the
door to God was shut, they had shut it on themselves. (vi) They had
the promises. Israel could never say that it did not know its
destiny. God had told them of the task and the privilege which were
in store for them in his purpose. They knew that they were destined
for great things in the economy of God.
26. (vii) They had the fathers. They had a tradition and a
history; and it is a poor man who can dare to be false to his
traditions and to shame the heritage into which he has entered.
(viii) Then comes the culmination. From them there came the
Anointed One of God. All else had been a preparation for this; and
yet when he came they rejected him. The biggest grief a man can
have is to give his child every chance of success, to sacrifice and
save and toil to give him the opportunity, and then to find that
the child, through his disobedience or rebelliousness or
self-indulgence, has failed to grasp it. Therein lies tragedy, for
therein is the waste of love's labour and the defeat of love's
dream. The tragedy of Israel was that God had prepared her for the
day of the coming of his Son--and all the preparation was
frustrated. It was not that God's law had been broken; it was that
God's love had been spurned. It is not the anger, but the broken
heart of God, which lies behind Paul's words. 2I have great sorrow
and unceasing anguish in my heart. BAR ES, Great heaviness - Great
grief. Continual sorrow - The word rendered continual here must be
taken in a popular sense. Not that he was literally all the time
pressed down with this sorrow, but that whenever he thought on this
subject, he had great grief; as we say of a painful subject, it is
a source of constant pain. The cause of this grief, Paul does not
expressly mention, though it is implied in what he immediately
says. It was the fact that so large a part of the nation would be
rejected, and cast off. GILL, That I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart. This is the thing he appeals to
Christ for the truth of, and calls in his conscience and the Holy
Ghost to bear witness to. These two words, "heaviness" and
"sorrow", the one signifies grief, which had brought on heaviness
on his spirits; and the other such pain as a woman in travail
feels: and the trouble of his mind expressed by both, is described
by its quantity, "great", it was not a little, but much; by its
quality it was internal, it was in his "heart", it did not lie
merely in outward show, in a few words or tears, but was in his
heart, it was a heart sorrow; and by its duration, "continual", it
was not a sudden emotion or passion, but what had been long in him,
and had deeply affected and greatly depressed him: and what was the
reason of all this? it is not expressed, but may pretty easily be
understood; it was because of the obstinacy of his countrymen the
Jews, the hardness of their hearts, and their wilful rejection of
the Messiah; their trusting to their own righteousness, to the
neglect and contempt of the righteousness of Christ, which he
27. knew must unavoidably issue in their eternal destruction;
also what greatly affected his mind was the utter rejection of
them, as the people of God, and the judicial blindness, and
hardness of heart, he full well knew was coming upon them, and
which he was about to break unto them. JAMISO , That I have, etc.
That I have great grief (or, sorrow) and unceasing anguish in my
heart - the bitter hostility of his nation to the glorious Gospel,
and the awful consequences of their unbelief, weighing heavily and
incessantly upon his spirit. CALVI , 2.That I have great sorrow,
etc. He dexterously manages so to cut short his sentence as not yet
to express what he was going to say; for it was not as yet
seasonable OPENLY to mention the destruction of the Jewish nation.
It may be added, that he thus intimates a greater measure of
sorrow, as imperfect sentences are for the most part full of
pathos. But he will presently express the cause of his sorrow,
after having more fully testified his sincerity. But the perdition
of the Jews caused very great anguish to Paul, though he knew that
it happened through the will and providence of God. We hence learn
that the obedience we render to God providence does not prevent us
from grieving at the destruction of lost men, though we know that
they are thus doomed by the just judgment of God; for the same mind
is capable of being influenced by these two feelings: that when it
looks to God it can willingly bear the ruin of those whom he has
decreed to destroy; and that when it turns its thoughts to men, it
condoles with their evils. They are then much deceived, who say
that godly men ought: to have apathy and insensibility, ( ) lest
they should resist the decree of God. COFFMA , That I have great
sorrow, and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish that I
myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen
ACCORDING to the flesh. Paul had more than sufficient reason, if he
had been of a mean and vindictive spirit, to hold bitterness
against his Jewish kinsmen because of their unrelenting
persecutions and harassment of his ministry and apostleship. Forty
of them, on occasion, had bound themselves with an oath not to eat
or drink until they had murdered him; and emissaries from the Jews
in Jerusalem had dogged his every step on the mission field. They
had preferred charges against him before kings and governors; and
yet, despite all this, his love for Israel was undiminished. How
noble are Paul's thoughts in such a context as that which frames
them here. letter, bring it out; and thus he approached it from a
different angle. Lard has this with reference to this amazing fact:
His countrymen had repudiated Christ; that was the fact which
caused his grief and sorrow; that any person should do this is
painful enough; that one's own kin should do it is exquisitely so.
The apostle does not yet name the fact that gave him pain, but
conceals it until he can bring it out with better effect.[3] I
could wish ... is the key to understanding Romans 9:3. As Hodge
wrote: The expression is evidently hypothetical and conditional, "I
could wish, were the thing allowable, possible, or proper."[4]
28. Paul's grief was like that of Jesus who "had compassion on
the multitude "(Matthew 9:6), and like that of Moses who said,
"Blot me out of