Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Romans 11:21

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 21. For if God spared not the natural branches — If He, in his infinite justice and holiness, could not tolerate sin in the people whom he foreknew, whom he had so long loved, cherished, miraculously preserved and blessed; take heed lest he also spare not thee. Be convinced that the same righteous principle in him will cause him to act towards you as he has acted towards them, if you sin after the similitude of their transgression; and to this, self-sufficiency and self-confidence will soon lead you. Remember, therefore, the rock whence you were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Depend incessantly on God's free grace, that ye may abide in his favour.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Salvation sent to the Gentiles (11:1-24)

All the above does not mean that God has totally rejected his people Israel. The fact that Paul has received salvation is proof that he has not (11:1). Just as in Elijah’s time there was a minority in Israel who did not turn away from God, so too in Paul’s time there is a minority whom God owns as his (2-5). These are God’s people not because of their good works, but because of God’s grace (6). They are few in number, but they have obtained the righteousness and salvation that Israel always wanted. As for the rebellious people as a whole, God has acted in judgment upon them by making them blind and deaf to the truth (7-10; cf. 9:17-18).
God’s judgment on the people of Israel does not mean that they are now without hope. Their rejection of Christ has resulted in the enrichment of the world, through the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles and the growth of God’s people into a vast international community. How much greater, then, will be the blessing when the Jews accept the gospel (11-12). Paul reminds his Gentile readers of one result he hopes for as he preaches to the Gentiles. His desires that his fruit among them might stir the Jews to jealousy and cause some to believe (13-14). He likens such Jewish believers to the first loaf of a batch or the root of a tree. They give hope of more to come (15-16).
The great family of God is compared to an olive tree. Until now this tree had been Jewish in its roots, trunk and branches. When the Jews rejected Christ, many of these Jewish branches were broken off, and branches from a wild olive tree (Gentiles) were grafted, or joined, into it instead (17). The Gentiles should not despise the Jews or feel proud of themselves because they have now come into the family of God. They should remember that the Jews were the ones who prepared the way for the gospel that the Gentiles have now believed, Without this Jewish preparation, the Gentiles’ salvation would not be possible (18).
God broke off cultivated Jewish branches because of their unbelief, and in his kindness grafted in wild Gentile branches instead. But if the Gentiles become arrogant, God can break them off also (19-22). If God can do what is contrary to nature and graft wild branches into the tree, he will have no difficulty in grafting cultivated Jewish branches into the parent tree again. The only reason why God holds back is the Jews’ refusal to give up their unbelief (23-24).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

For if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee.

In the event that Gentiles should manifest the same qualities of unbelief and obduracy which marred the life of fleshly Israel, the consequences for them will be the same, there being here another hint of the superiority of the Jews, as represented in the degree of preference pertaining to the natural branch over the wild branch. This verse shouts the conditional nature of God's favor. Far from there being any such thing as an everlasting decree that this or that shall happen, people are endowed with freedom of the will to act as they choose to act; and the immutable election is to the effect that whichever way they act will determine their destiny. This verse shows that exactly the same principles of God's judgment are applied to Jews and Gentiles alike with impeccable impartiality. It is God's intrinsic righteousness, the basic theme of Romans, which required Paul to spell out the immutable quality of the eternal justice of the Creator, as in this passage.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

For if God ... - If God did not refrain from rejecting the Jews who became unbelievers, assuredly he will not refrain from rejecting you in the same circumstances. It may be supposed that he will be quite as ready to reject the ingrafted branches, as to cast off those which belonged to the parent stock. The situation of the Gentiles is not such as to give them any security over the condition of the rejected Jew.

Living By Faith: Commentary on Romans & 1st Corinthians

11:17-21: But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou, being a wild olive, wast grafted in among them, and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree; 18 glory not over the branches: but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that bearest the root, but the root thee. 19 Thou wilt say then, Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. 20 Well; by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not highminded, but fear: 21 for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee.

There are some difficult sections in Romans 11:1-36, and these five verses are problematic. Does the word “branches” mean the same thing in verses 16-17? Did Paul mean to say that some Jews became Christians (they were the “first fruit”) and then God broke them off? This is a difficult conclusion to accept and sustain.

If the explanation given for first fruit in verse 16 (Jewish converts) is right, then Paul applied a different meaning to the word branches in verse 17. The branches that were broken off in verse 17 were Jews who lived under the Old Testament system and did not embrace the New Testament (compare Matthew 8:11-12). Of the ten times the word branches (klados) is used in the New Testament, five of the occurrences are in Romans 11:16-21.

In 17b the thought is continued and Paul introduced the Gentiles. Those who were not Jewish were like a “wild olive tree.” In making this comparison, Paul used a metaphor instead of a simile (the comparative word was omitted). The “grafting” described by Paul was 100% complete. The Gentiles became part of the tree’s “root” and “fatness.” These words should be compared to the picture on page 235. Grafted in (enkentrizo) occurs only a few times in the New Testament, and all these places are in Romans 11:1-36 (verses 17, 19, 23, 24). Thayer (p. 166) offers this definition of the term: “Paul likens the heathen who by becoming Christians have been admitted into fellowship with the people for whom the Messianic salvation is destined, to scions from wild trees inserted into a cultivated stock.”

The significance of olive trees is found in the Old Testament. Under the Old Covenant God’s people were sometimes compared to an olive tree (see Jeremiah 11:16 and Hosea 14:6) as these were one of the most valued and useful trees in all Palestine. More information about the olive tree and how it relates to the gospel is available in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (3:2184) as well as the following points.

Ø Several years are required before these trees reach their full fruitfulness.

Ø Hostile armies could invade the land and destroy trees and other items in a matter of days. If these trees grew to maturity, it meant the people were at peace and war was a distant memory. The existence of these trees represented peace.

Ø Scripture portrays this tree as being beautiful (Jeremiah 11:16; Hosea 14:6; Psalms 128:3).

Ø In Romans 11:1-36 Paul pictured more than an olive tree. He described the “grafting in” of a wild olive tree. This is very important. As a general rule wild olive trees are little more than a shrub. They have small leaves, a prickly stem, and produce little to no oil. Grafting a good olive tree with a wild olive tree is senseless. Yet, this was what God did. He took the Gentiles, a people who were despised and scorned, and grafted them into a beautiful tree. He did what men would normally never do.

Ø Take a moment to study Ephesians 5:26-27 to see what this new tree is like.

Ø The Gentiles were grafted in to this tree because of their belief (verse 20).

Ø The Jews, who Paul compared to branches, were cut off because of their unbelief.

Ø If the Gentiles failed to continue with their “belief,” they too would be removed. On the other hand, if Jews began to believe (accept and obey the gospel), they could be grafted into this tree (the tree is identical to the one body, Ephesians 4:4-5. Paul called this one body the church in Ephesians 1:22-23).

Since Paul showed that the Gentiles were made part of God’s tree (and this is another picture of the church), he quickly added a warning. This warning was given to the Gentiles (verse 18), and it is very strong. Paul used a special grammatical construction which means “stop glorying” or “do not have the habit of glorying over the branches” (Robertson, 4:396). Also, the word for glory (“boast,” KJV) is quite strong. This term (katakauchaomai) is a present tense verb. It meant “to brag about oneself in comparison with others” (CBL, GED, 3:259). According to Gingrich and Danker (p. 411), it was found on a grave inscription in Asia Minor (the monument inscription refers to a gladiator who gloated over a defeated foe).

The Gentiles were apparently treating Jews with strong contempt. They might have said to their Jewish brethren, “You were God’s special people but your status has been lost. All Gentiles are now entitled to be in the family of God and your nation has been rejected.” Because the Jews had been so unkind to the Gentiles in the past Paul realized non-Jews (Gentiles) could be tempted to act just as he described (with spite and bitter remarks). To resolve the hostility Paul said, “it is not thou that bearest the root.” That is, “You Gentiles did not originate the process of salvation that I have described. You are not responsible for blessing all mankind and therefore have no reason to brag or gloat.”

The basis for all that exists in Christianity was the root (the Hebrew religion). Judaism had to exist to bring salvation to the Gentiles (see John 4:22; Isaiah 2:2 f; Romans 11:26). Without the Jews and their history, salvation would have never come to the world. Thus, before the Gentiles mocked and derided the Jews, they needed to remember that their access to Christ was based upon work done by the Jewish people.

What Paul wrote should be a good lesson for us. Before speaking badly about Christians from the past, we must remember that without others we might have very little or nothing at all. A church building might not exist and a congregation of God’s people might not exist if it had not been for our predecessors. This part of Romans tells us to remember and appreciate people from the past.

Paul described the Jewish people as “natural branches.” That is, God started out with the Hebrew people. He selected one family and made a covenant with them (Romans 9:4-5; Ephesians 2:12). This was how the process began.

The expressions “sons of the covenant” (Acts 3:25) and “sons of the kingdom” show that the people used by God had a prominent and important place in history. While the Gentiles were not second-class citizens in the kingdom, the Jewish race deserves to be recognized for its contributions to the New Testament and salvation. The Jews were the means God used to bring salvation to the world and the Bible recognizes their part in the process.

In verse 19 there is a warning. Paul also knew his Gentile readers might conclude that the branches (Jews who were not Christians and loyal to the Old Testament) were “cut off” to make room for the Gentiles.

While it is true that many Jews were cut off (verse 17), their removal was not to “make room” for the grafting in of the Gentiles. The Jews were cut off because they rejected the gospel. Paul wanted his readers to know that any unsaved Hebrew who wanted to obey the gospel could; there was room enough for all the Hebrews. The same was true for the Gentiles. The tree (Christ’s body) is large enough for everyone (John 3:16). Having all people together in one tree (which is also known as the Lord’s body and church) is God’s will (Ephesians 2:14).

The 20^th verse contains a summary. The nation of Israel, as a whole, refused to “believe” (this word is a synecdoche that means obedience to the gospel). Because the Jews refused to follow the New Testament, they were “broken off.” For another demonstration of how the Bible uses synecdoches, see 2 Thessalonians 3:8 (“bread” includes food, drink, shelter, etc.).

While Jewish unbelief removed many Hebrews from God’s fellowship, heaven allowed the Gentiles to “stand” (be part of the tree). The Gentiles became part of the tree “by faith.” This was not mere belief but obedience to the gospel (see the comments on 1:5).

Though the Gentiles had the right to be in Christ and have all spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:3), Paul warned them about pride and haughtiness. According to 20b the Gentiles were instructed to “fear” and “not be high minded.” It was right to enjoy and use their status in Christ, but boasting about their privileges was wrong. Gentiles were proud about things that were not worthy of bigheadedness, and in describing this mindset Paul used the present tense. Other matters (compare 1 Timothy 6:17) also create pride in the lives of people, but often what matters so much to people is usually of little importance. What should matter most in the minds of people is Christ and faithful Christian living (Matthew 6:33; Galatians 2:20).

If saved people do not want to behave and stay in God’s body (tree) they will be removed. People will lose their salvation (verse 21) if they do not continue to abide in the Lord (John 15:6). When the Jews refused to follow God’s plans, they were cast off. Paul said the same would be true for the Gentiles if they rebelled.

Before looking at the next set of verses, we must understand why God rejected the Jewish people. The Jews were cut off because they rejected the New Testament and did not accept Jesus as the Messiah. They were not cut off to make room for the Gentiles.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

21.For if God has not spared the natural branches, etc. This is a most powerful reason to beat down all self-confidence: for the rejection of the Jews should never come across our minds without striking and shaking us with dread. For what ruined them, but that through supine dependence on the dignity which they had obtained, they despised what God had appointed? They were not spared, though they were natural branches; what then shall be done to us, who are the wild olive and aliens, if we become beyond measure arrogant? But this thought, as it leads us to distrust ourselves, so it tends to make us to cleave more firmly and steadfastly to the goodness of God.

And here again it appears more evident, that the discourse is addressed generally to the body of the Gentiles, for the excision, of which he speaks, could not apply to individuals, whose election is unchangeable, based on the eternal purpose of God. Paul therefore declares to the Gentiles, that if they exulted over the Jews, a reward for their pride would be prepared for them; for God will again reconcile to himself the first people whom he has divorced.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn in our Bibles to Romans, chapter 11.

In chapters 9-11 Paul is dealing with a couple of subjects; one the sovereignty of God, but it is the sovereignty of God in setting aside the nation Israel as God's primary target, you might say for work, and beginning to pour out His Spirit and work among the Gentiles. Because Paul is a Jew through and through, his heart, his prayer for Israel is that they might be saved, and yet, he can see in the scriptures those prophecies of God's move among the Gentiles. In the later portion of chapter 10, he gives some of those prophecies of how God was going to be found of them that did not seek for Him; He was going to manifest Himself unto the Gentiles, but of the Jew He said, "All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

Chapter 11 is really just a continuation of chapter 10. The chapter distinctions were not in the original writings; they have been placed there by men to help us to reference the scriptures, to reference passages, but sometimes we have a tendency of just reading a chapter and quitting and then beginning a new chapter and you are not continuing in the same thought as though there were not the chapter or verse distinction. You must remember that in the original this was just one continuous letter. Chapter and verse distinction distinguishing facts are placed there by man only for the help in referencing passages.

God has said He was going to manifest Himself unto the Gentiles. He has stretched out His hand all day long to the disobedient and gainsaying people.

I say then, Has God cast away his people? [The answer is] God forbid ( Romans 11:1 ).

Now it is unfortunate that there is a certain branch of theologians today who do declare that God has cast away His people. They endeavor to spiritualize Israel to make it apply to the church, and those prophecies that relate to Israel they seek to relate to the church. And as a consequence, they really get the whole prophetic picture totally confused. There are those who seek to identify the Anglo-Saxon nations as Israel. There is a lot of talk of the ten lost tribes, which is not really a true scriptural type of a reference. He said the lost sheep of the house of Israel, sent them to the lost sheep, but He didn't say anything about ten lost tribes. But just those who were lost, the lost sheep in the house of Israel. The Lord knows exactly where the twelve tribes are and who comprises the twelve tribes. And in the book of the Revelation the Lord will be sealing 12,000 out of each tribe to preserve them through a portion of the judgments in the book of Revelation. But again, to try to make the church Israel or to make the Anglo-Saxon's race Israel is just unscriptural and is not valid at all.

They use such arguments as the nation of Denmark they say is actually, Dan mark, actually the tribe of Dan, or the Danish people. The word ish in Hebrew means man, so Danish, so they are Danish people or Danish people according to pronunciation and, of course, you have the British, and foolish, so it doesn't really prove too much. But it does confuse the whole prophetic scene. God is now working among the Gentiles, and God will continue to work among the Gentiles until the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, when we get to Romans 11:25 .

So the question is, has God cast away His people? Is He through with them forever? God forbid. The whole prophecy picture of the Old Testament dealt with Israel's fall, but in order that they might rise again. Hosea was an interesting prophet. God told him to take a prostitute for a wife, and he began to name the children with prophetic names or names of prophetic significance. And, of course, the one child he called Lo-ammi, which means not my child. His wife had gone out and was engaging in her old practices again even while married to him, and had a child that wasn't his. And finally she just left him completely and her life went down the tube. Until she was a slave, almost destitute and destroyed, and God said to Hosea, "Go take her again, buy her out of her slavery, wash her up, cleanse her, and take her as your wife once more." And the whole life of Hosea with this unfaithful wife became a picture of God's relationship with the nation of Israel, how He took her, espoused her unto Himself, married her, the glories of that first bloom of love. But then how Israel began to turn away unto other gods. They began to forsake the fountains of living waters and worship idols. And how they finally turned their back on God completely, but yet, God's undying love and, of course, bringing them back again, and God's work of restoration, which is yet future but shall be.

So God has not cast away His people in a final sense, for Paul said,

I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin ( Romans 11:1 ).

Now Benjamin was one of the supposed lost tribes, but it sure wasn't as far as Paul was concerned, he knew what tribe he was from. He didn't say, "We Benjamites," you know, "We are lost; we don't know who we are or where we are." But he knew that he was of the tribe of Benjamin.

Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, and they say that the Jews today are for the most part from the tribe of Judah. However, other tribes were lost, Judah and Benjamin remain, but the rest of them were lost. Not so. That is not the case. So most Jews today have lost their genealogies and could not tell you exactly what tribe they are from, yet they know they are Jews.

Paul of the tribe of Benjamin and,

God has not cast away his people which he foreknew. Don't you know what the scripture said in and of Elijah? that how when he was making intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed your prophets, and tore down thy altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what did the Lord answer him? I have reserved for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed their knee to the image of Baal ( Romans 11:2-4 ).

Elijah had experienced one of the greatest victories in his career as he had challenged the prophets of Baal there on Mount Carmel, building the altars, "Let's pray unto their gods," the four hundred priests of Baal. "You can pray to them and I will pray to the living God, and the god that answers by fire let him be the God." And, of course, the priests of Baal prayed and nothing happened, and Elijah prayed and God sent down fire and consumed the offering and the altar and all. Elijah took the priests of Baal and at that moment of victory down to the brook Kishon and slayed them. Killed four hundred of them, the prophets and priests of Baal. And the next day when Jezebel, the wife of the wicked king, found out what Elijah had done, she said, "God do so to me also if I don't have the head of that man." So Elijah fled from Jezebel.

It is so typical how that the times of greatest trial often follow the times of greatest victory. Thus with Elijah, tremendous victory, but now he is running from this queen--not afraid to face up to the four hundred prophets and priests of Baal, but one angry woman and he ran clear on down to the area of Mount Sinai, and there he hid in a cave. And as he was standing in the entrance of the cave, the Lord said, "Elijah what are you doing here?" He said, "I have been zealous for God, and they have all turned from You, and I am the only one You have left, and they are seeking my life. God, You are just about out of business; I am Your last one and they have got a contract out on me."

God responded to Elijah, "I have 7,000 who have not bowed their knee to Baal." There was the remnant, the faithful remnant that were there, and God knew who they were, and God had them numbered. As Paul is going to point out, God has always had His faithful remnant--those believers among the Jewish people, those special persons, super special persons among the Jewish people who have recognized the true work of God and are walking with God in fellowship with Him. With God there have always been a special number, a remnant, the faithful remnant. So in the time of Elijah, Paul said, "Don't you remember that God said, 'There are 7,000 that I have reserved unto Me'?" The true remnant that worshipped God, that served God, that had not turned after Baal. Even so, Paul said,

At this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace ( Romans 11:5 ).

There were those in Paul's day and, of course, the early church was a Jewish church to begin with. There was some problem when even it was thought that they might introduce Gentiles into the church. It was, first of all, strictly Jewish, but among the Jews there were many believers, the remnant, God's faithful remnant who now are according to the election of grace.

And it is now by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it is of works, then it is no longer grace ( Romans 11:6 ):

In other words, grace and works are mutually exclusive. If I am expecting God to accept me by His grace, then there is no work that I can do to make me acceptable. If I am seeking to be accepted by God by my works, then grace has no affect upon my life. They are mutually exclusive, and yet, we are so often trying to make a combination out of the two. Saved by grace, but oh, you know, let me do my works. But if it is of grace, then it cannot be of works. But if it is of works, then it can't be of grace; they are mutually exclusive.

What then? Israel has not obtained that which it sought for; but the election have obtained it, and the rest were blinded ( Romans 11:7 )

Now, what was Israel seeking? They were seeking to be righteous before God. That was the whole purpose of the sacrifice of the law, in order to develop a righteous standing before God.

Now it is interesting that Paul makes reference here that they were seeking it by works. That continues to the present day, a Jew today is seeking to be accepted today on the basis of his good works. Yom Kippur is not a day of sacrifice, the priest entering in with the offering before the Lord in the Holy of Holies, but Yom Kippur is a day of reflection as you sat and you reflect upon your good works and upon your evil works and balancing the good works against the evil, so it is a seeking acceptance by God on the basis of works.

Paul speaks about them doing it in his day, and they are doing it to the present day--still seeking an acceptance by God on the basis of their works. The Jews are not alone in that, that same concept has crept over into church so that in many different churches there are people who are looking to their works as the basis of being accepted by God. "God will accept me if I am faithful to the ordinances of the church and the sacraments of the church, and if I am doing this and this." They are looking for acceptance on the basis of their good works.

When you are looking to your good works as the basis of your acceptance for God, surely that doesn't prompt a lot of works, so these people are real workers. They have a practice of going around, many of them from door to door. It is easy to tell the difference from where they're coming from. If they are riding bicycles and have shirts and ties, then, you know, they are working their way through the Mormon system. If they carry a little magazine bag, then you know that they are working their way through the Jehovah Witness. They are both systems that are predicated on works and looking to their works as the basis of being accepted.

If it is of works then it is no more of grace; it can't be of both. So Israel did not obtain that acceptance before God, that righteous standing, because they sought it by their works. Whereby their election did obtain it, the election of grace. But the rest were blinded.

(According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. David said ( Romans 11:8-9 ),

Paul just starts passages of scriptures out of the Old Testament to prove his point. And this is good solid teaching when a man will make a statement and then give you three or four verses to confirm that statement. And so he first quotes from Isaiah, then he quoted from David, and he said,

Let their table be made a snare, a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompense unto them: let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always. I say always then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? ( Romans 11:9-11 )

Have they stumbled that they should be put out of the game forever?

God forbid: but rather that through their fall there is come salvation unto the Gentiles, in order to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world ( Romans 11:11-12 ),

In other words, by Israel falling out of the place of divine favor in the sense that now set them aside that He might work among the Gentiles, His work of Grace. Their being set aside brought to us the riches of God's grace, goodness and love unto the Gentiles.

the diminishing of them or the riches of the Gentiles; how much more will their fullness be? ( Romans 11:12 )

God is yet to work with them, and when the fullness comes and God begins to work again with Israel, if their fall brought such glory to the Gentile world, what will it be when God restores them, but of course the Kingdom Age, that glorious age to which we look.

For I speak unto you Gentiles, as much as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office ( Romans 11:13 ):

So Paul now turns to speak to the Gentiles, and he calls himself the apostle of the Gentiles. And Paul, of course, paid quite a price for this position as an apostle to the Gentiles; he had to take all types of guff from people, especially from the Jews. They considered him a traitor because he was telling the Gentiles that they didn't need to obey the law of Moses to be accepted by God. All they had to do was believe in Jesus Christ. He was telling the Gentiles that they did not have to offer sacrifices in the temple in order to be saved, all they had to do was believe in Jesus Christ and, of course, this created quite a conflict between those Jews who were still seeking a righteousness by the law. It was a threat to them, even as the declaration that a person could be saved through faith in Jesus Christ alone today is a threat to many churches and church systems.

I have a friend who was in the Anglican Church in Canada. He was a dean in one of the cathedrals there, and this man became born again, really turned on to the Lord. And he began to have prayer meetings with the Episcopalian or the Anglican Church there. And in these prayer meetings people really were beginning to experience the power of God and the Holy Spirit in their lives. The church was a very liberal church, and that was quite fine if that makes you feel good, more power to you, a very tolerant attitude. And then he started teaching the people that you have to be born again. He was kicked out because that was contrary to the basic church belief that you were born again when you were baptized as an infant and then later your confirmation, you were only confirming your salvation at infant baptism. And when he started saying you have go to be born again it created such a problem that he was dismissed from his church for teaching the people that you had to be born again. They were trusting in their works, infant baptism and confirmation, instead of just that faith in Jesus Christ.

Paul magnifying his position as an apostle as he sought:

to provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, that I might save some of them ( Romans 11:14 ).

He was just really in his heart as he said, "My heart-felt prayer and desire for Israel is that they might be saved." Even though he was called of God as the apostle of the Gentiles, then was in all kinds of hot water for preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, declaring that the Gentiles could be saved, especially could be saved apart from becoming a Jew. They could be saved by just believing in Jesus Christ and they didn't have to proselytize and become a Jew, that made him a heretic, and for this reason they tried to kill him when he was in Jerusalem. But yet, Paul's desire and prayer for Israel was for their salvation. He goes on to say,

If the casting away of them was the reconciling of the world ( Romans 11:15 ),

God reconciled the world to Himself through Jesus Christ. Not just the Jewish people, but now the world.

what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? ( Romans 11:15 )

Again dealing with the contrast from the lesser to the greater if their casting away brought such reconciliation of the world to God, the Gentile world, then what will it be when God receives them again and gives His divine favor and grace upon them?

For if the firstfruits be holy, the whole lump is also holy: and if the root is holy, so are the branches ( Romans 11:16 ).

And, of course, the firstfruit Abraham, the patriarchs, the fathers, the root from which these people spread.

If some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and you have partaken of the root and the fatness of the olive tree; don't boast against the branches. But if you boast, you bear not the root, but the root thee. I will say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; it was because of unbelief that they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Don't be high-minded, but fear ( Romans 11:17-20 ):

There has been through history of the church a very unfortunate relationship between the church and the Jews, and unfortunately, the church has been responsible for much of the persecution of the Jews today. I think that is indeed tragic. That for years the Catholic Church led in the persecution of the Jews, and it was something when Martin Luther broke away from the Catholic Church, he carried with him his anti-Semitism, and Martin Luther also encouraged the persecution of the Jews.

It crept on into Protestantism. There are many Protestant ministers today who are very anti-Semitic. And I get hate mail from them because of my known position of support for Israel and for the Jews. There are those who would boast themselves against the natural branches, "God's cut them off, God is through with them; we are now the people." And he says, "Wait a minute, you are a wild olive branch and you have been grafted into the vine or into the tree, contrary to nature. And they were broken off because of their unbelief, and you are only standing by faith, so don't be so high-minded."

I do believe that as Paul, our hearts and desire and prayers for Israel, that they should be saved. Now that doesn't mean that I have a great burden to establish a Calvary Chapel in Jerusalem and to start a mission there to save the Jews. I do not feel that God has called me as an evangelist to the Jewish nation or to the Jewish people parse. God has called me to just teach His Word and that I am to do faithfully. However, I do not feel that I can undo what God has done, and that is why I don't have a burden for Jewish evangelism. And so in this I am neither fish or fowl, I get it from both sides because some people have a tremendous zeal for Jewish evangelism that I don't have. I believe that God will evangelize them when He is ready, and that God will graft them back in when He is ready, and that God will open their eyes when He is ready. In the meantime, God has poured out His grace, His Spirit upon the Gentiles, and thus, I like to fish where the fish are biting. And so, these are the fruitful fields among the Gentiles, and I really feel that, for the most part, Jewish evangelism is a waste of church finances that can be better used to evangelize the Gentiles at this time. And that when the day comes God Himself is going to reveal Himself to the Jewish nation, to Israel, and God is going to work there among them. So, I like to go over and provoke them to jealousy, and tell them how wonderful their Messiah is and what He has done for me, and how much I love Him, and how glorious it is to walk in fellowship with God, and to have peace with God and the joy of the Lord and all, and just what a glorious Messiah they have. And I like to provoke them to jealousy, but I am quite interested in them and I do share with them and I share my beliefs and my faith with them, but I am amazed at how blind they are. Because some of them are extremely knowledgeable in the Word of God, yet they are so totally blind when it comes to Jesus Christ. Blindness has happened to Israel and that is true.

When I was speaking a few years back at the International Congress in Jerusalem, sharing the platform with then Prime Minister Begin, I got some hate mail from some of the rabbis in the Meo Sharem area of Jerusalem, who are ultra orthodox, rebuking me for trying to support the nation of Israel with understanding from the Christians, because the purpose of the rally was to bring understanding to the Jews and the evangelical Christians, and these radical rabbis wrote me these letters rebuking me and telling me I had no business being there and Israel had no right to even exist as a nation because the Messiah had not yet come. They did not yet have their temple, and they were very opposed to the nation of Israel themselves. They lived there in the Meo Sharem district of Jerusalem, but they did write to King Hussin in Jordan and they asked him to annex the Meo Sharim into Jordan. They didn't want to have anything to do with the nation of Israel. They feel that it is sort of an illegitimate state right now. And so they wrote me these letters and all. So these guides that I had been talking to for so long and witnessing to, I said, "Hey fellows I want to show you..." They were so pleased. And, "It's so nice that you are here," and all this kind of stuff. And I said, "Look at what some of your rabbis sent me." And I gave them these hate letters that I had from the rabbis there. And they read it and said, "Oh, this is just junk. Those guys are just a bunch of religious fanatics. They don't know what they are talking about. They're just religious fanatics." And I said, "But they are rabbis." "Oh, but they're just religious fanatics." And I said, "You mean a rabbi can be a religious fanatic?" "Oh, ya, ya." "Have you ever stopped to think that it was probably those same kind of rabbis that rejected Jesus as the Messiah, because He didn't fit the patterns. A bunch of radicals, and yet, you today are following those radicals." They didn't have much to say. So I get my little witness in.

They were broken off because of their unbelief, and we only stand by faith.

For if God spared not the natural branch, take heed lest he also spare not thee ( Romans 11:21 ).

Jesus said, "I am the true vine, My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that bears fruit, He washes it that it might bring forth more fruit. Now you are clean through the Word that I have spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and let my words abide in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, neither more can thee, except you abide in me" ( John 15:1-5 ). Abide in Me, the emphasis of abiding. We are branches, and we have been grafted in contrary to nature. We receive the blessings of God, the blessings of the promises of God to Abraham and to David. We have received the benefit of them through receiving Jesus Christ, and we partake of the fatness and the richness and the fullness of God's love and grace that He had promised unto Abraham, unto Isaac, unto Jacob, and unto David. But we only stand by faith. And again, we are encouraged to abide there. "For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He does not spare thee."

Behold therefore the goodness and the severity of God: on them which fell ( Romans 11:22 ),

It was quite severe upon the fall of Israel from the place of God's favor and blessings.

severity; but toward you, the goodness, if you continue in his goodness: otherwise you also will be cut off. They also, if they abide not still in unbelief, will be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again ( Romans 11:22-23 ).

When they turned from their unbelief, God will receive them again.

For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and you were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree ( Romans 11:24 );

You were cut out of this wild olive tree of the Gentile's race, and you were grafted into the good tree.

how much more shall these, which are the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree? For I would not, brethren, that you to be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own conceit ( Romans 11:24-25 ),

Ignorant of what mystery? That God is yet going to deal with the nation of Israel as the nation of Israel. And unfortunately, there are many people who are ignorant of that mystery, and many ministers ignorant of that ministry.

blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in ( Romans 11:25 ).

God has sent His Spirit into the world, into the highways and byways, to compel men to come to the supper. As Jesus gave the parable, you know, the king prepared a great supper and they said, "Go out to the invited guests and invite them to come in and to eat." And the servants came back and they said, "Well, they said that they couldn't come," and the various excuses. So the king said, "Then go out to the highways and the byways and compel men to come in that my house may be full." The invited guest rejected the invitation, and so it has come to us, the Gentiles, and blindness has happened in part to Israel, not to all of Israel, again there is that remnant, but in part to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

I do believe that God knows exactly how many Gentiles are going to be brought into the wedding feast, that God knows the exact number. If He is an omniscient God, He has to know the exact number, because that means all knowledge; He knows everything. I do believe that God does know and does have a specified number of Gentiles that are going to believe and to be a part of that kingdom, and that number is referred to as the fullness of the Gentiles.

Now there is another phrase in Luke 21 , the time of the Gentiles. That is a little different. I believe that the time of the Gentiles technically was over in 1967, for Jerusalem shall be trodden under foot of the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. But since 1967. And now we are living in a short period of an age of grace between the time of the fulfillment of the Gentiles until the time of the fullness of the Gentiles is come in. Not all the Gentiles that were to be saved were saved in 1967, a lot of you weren't, God waited for you. But somewhere alive on the earth today is some person whom God has known, and he is the last one among the Gentiles to be a part of God's glorious eternal kingdom. The moment that person opens up his heart to Jesus Christ, we are all going to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. I am convinced of that. It is just like walking into Disneyland and having the lights flash, and the trumpets go off, and the drums roll, and they say, "You are the five millionth visitor to Disneyland," and everything is celebration. They have been counting the people as they have been coming through, and you are it. Now the big gala celebration, and such shall be the case when the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. I wish I knew who that person was. I think I would be tempted to do a little coercion. God has called out a people for Himself. I am so grateful that God has called me. I am so thankful that God chose me to be a part of His eternal kingdom. Oh, the goodness and the grace of God, that I was chosen in Christ, that I should be an heir in the kingdom of God. I thank God daily for that blessing, as you should thank God daily that He chose you.

Now, when the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, then the blindness will be taken away from Israel. I believe that this will transpire when Russia is defeated by God as she invades the Middle East. I received some reports from Israel this past week of the tensions that are building up as the result of Russia's deployment of the SS21 's in Syria. Some of the military leaders there were declaring that this is a definite threat to Israel's security and will probably mean war with Syria very soon, knowing that war with Syria could very easily escalate into war with Russia. We do know that Russia is going to get involved and, of course, as the result of those tragedies today, the tensions are mounting in the Middle East. I would not be at all surprised but what we will not be forced to call on Israel to bail us out of Lebanon. I think that our government has made some serious miscalculations and some serious blunders in the decisions concerning the Middle East. It is like my friends in Israel say, "Those men sitting over in Washington don't know what is going on over here, nor do they understand the mentality of the people that we are dealing with."

The Syrian government recently released films of the young girls and boys in their training. These films, some of them, the ones concerning the girls were shown in Israel on television, but CBS and NBC, ABC, felt that they weren't really newsworthy. They really showed the kind of people we dealing with, and because this kind of news is withheld, we don't understand the mess we are in when we try to interfere with these people, because they don't think as we think. These particular films made by the Syrian government showing the training of the young girls for battle, for their army, and the Russians are now expanding their advisors to 8,000 in Syria.

But these pictures show these girls taking snakes and handling the snakes and so forth. They are in training in their service, and they begin to bite the snakes until their mouths are covered with blood, and then they began to eat the snakes--they roast them, then eat them after biting them to death. A bloody mess, and it was shown on Israeli TV. It's filmed out of Syria. The fellows, of course, they felt that the Israelis couldn't stomach this film, so they didn't show it, choking to death little dogs and ripping them apart. Part of their training in just being cold, calloused, vicious, and that is the kind of people we are dealing with, and we are not prepared to deal with people like that, because we can't understand how they think. And we send our Marines in there, and we restrict them and make them sitting ducks, and this is not right. The Israelis know it isn't right, but we have tied the Israeli's hands too, and they say, "If you are going to tie our hands, we aren't going to stay around; we are getting out of here." They move back behind the river where they can sit up defensible positions, and they said, "You can't treat the people that way, you can't stay there like that, they are just going to do murderous acts against you." They say, "We have got it all managed." But we don't understand the mentality of the people we are dealing with. It is a very tragic thing, but Russia is going to be moving into the Middle East, and when Russia moves into the Middle East, God Himself is going to intervene and utterly destroy that Russian invading army.

When that day takes place, the blindness that Israel has experienced will be over and they will recognize their God. In Ezekiel 39 , God declared, "And in that day when I am sanctified before the nations of the world (that is, the day when He destroys the Russian army), then will I pour out my Spirit again upon the nation of Israel." Right now, God's Spirit is being poured out upon we Gentiles until the fullness of the Gentiles is come in, but as soon as that takes place, then God is going to deal with the nation of Israel. Blindness has happened to Israel in part until the fullness of the Gentiles comes in, but then all of Israel shall be saved, because God is going to move by His Spirit again, and in a powerful way among the Gentile people; they are going to recognize.

They will come out of Zion the deliverer, and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sakes ( Romans 11:26-28 ):

It is to your blessing and benefit because the gospel is come unto us and the Spirit of God bringing the truth of God.

as touching the election, there is still beloved for the father's sake ( Romans 11:28 ).

God said, "I can't let you go." He will not let them go.

For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance [or changing] ( Romans 11:29 ).

God is not changing; He still loves these people.

For as you in times past have not believed God, yet now have obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so these also now not believing, that through your mercy they also obtain mercy. For God has included them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! and how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! ( Romans 11:30-33 )

So he is dealing with the sovereignty of God setting aside of Israel, the work of grace among the Gentiles, the wisdom, the knowledge, the ways of God past our finding out.

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? or who hath first given to him, and it has been recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen ( Romans 11:34-36 ).

"

Contending for the Faith

For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.

Gentile Christians must humbly recognize that if God cut off the natural branches from His olive tree, because of their faithless disobedience, He will certainly not spare the wild olive branches grafted into His tree if those branches also become unbelieving or unfruitful. Contrary to widely held beliefs in the world of Christendom, it is possible for saved people to fall from grace so as to be lost—cut off from God’s olive tree. There is no such thing as eternal security of the saints. The security the believer has is conditioned upon his continued faithful obedience for all of his life. Christians, do not be arrogant! Instead be afraid!

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. Israel’s rejection not final 11:11-24

Now Paul put the remnant aside and dealt with Israel as a whole. Even while Israel resists God’s plan centered in Messiah, the Lord is at work bringing Gentiles to salvation. Gentile salvation really depends on Israel’s covenant relationship with God, as Paul illustrated with the olive tree. The salvation of Gentiles in the present age not only magnifies the grace of God, but it will also provoke Israel to jealousy and lead her ultimately to return to the Lord.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Throughout this whole discussion Paul was viewing Gentile believers and Jewish unbelievers as two groups. This fact is clear from his use of the singular "you" in the Greek text (su, Romans 11:17-24). If he had been speaking of individual believers, we might conclude that this verse provides some basis for believing that a believer can lose his salvation. Paul’s point was, if God set aside Jews temporarily because of their unbelief, He could do the same with Gentiles because of their boasting.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 11

THE CALLUS ON THE HEART ( Romans 11:1-12 )

11:1-12 So then, I ask, "Has God repudiated his people?" God forbid! I, too, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not repudiated his people whom long ago he marked out for his purposes. Do you not know what scripture says in the passage about Elijah? You remember how he talked to God in complaint against Israel: "Lord, they have killed your prophets; they have torn down your altars; and I alone am left and they are seeking my life." But what was the answer that came to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So, then, at this present time too, there is a remnant chosen by his grace. And if they were chosen by grace, their relationship to God is no longer dependent on works, for, if that were so, grace is no longer grace. What then? Israel has not obtained that for which she is searching; but the chosen remnant has obtained it, while the rest have been made so dull and insensitive in heart that they cannot see. As it stands written: "God gave them a spirit of lethargy--eyes not to see, ears not to hear--down to this day." And David says: "Let their table become a snare, and a trap, and a thing to trip them up, and a retribution for them. and let their backs be bent for ever." So, I say, "Have they stumbled that their fall might be complete?" God forbid! So far from that, salvation has become a gift for the Gentiles because of their fall, so as to move them to jealousy of the Gentiles. If their fall has brought wealth to the world, if their failure has brought wealth to the Gentiles, how much more shall the whole world be enriched, when they come in, and the whole process of salvation is completed?

There was a question now to be asked which any Jew was bound to ask. Does all this mean that God has repudiated his people? That is a question that Paul's heart cannot bear. After all, he himself is a member of that people. So he falls back on an idea which runs through much of the Old Testament. In the days of Elijah, Elijah was in despair ( 1 Kings 19:10-18). He had come to the conclusion that he alone was left to be true to God. But God told him that, in fact, there were still seven thousand in Israel who had not bowed the knee to Baal. So into Jewish thought came the idea of The Remnant.

The prophets began to see that there never was a time, and never would be, when the whole nation was true to God; nevertheless, always within the nation a remnant was left who had never forsaken their loyalty or compromised their faith. Prophet after prophet came to see this. Amos ( Amos 9:8-10) thought of God sifting men as corn is in a sieve until only the good are left. Micah ( Micah 2:12; Micah 5:3) had a vision of God gathering the remnant of Israel. Zephaniah ( Zephaniah 3:12-13) had the same idea. Jeremiah foresaw the remnant being gathered from all the countries throughout which they had been scattered ( Jeremiah 23:3). Ezekiel, the individualist, was convinced that a man could not be saved by either a national or an inherited righteousness; the righteous would deliver their own souls by their righteousness ( Ezekiel 14:14; Ezekiel 14:20; Ezekiel 14:22). Above all, this idea dominated the thought of Isaiah. He called his son Shear-Jashub, which means The Salvation of the Remnant. Again and again he returns to this idea of the faithful remnant who will be saved by God ( Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 8:2; Isaiah 8:18; Isaiah 9:12; Isaiah 6:9-13).

There is a tremendous truth beginning to dawn here. As one great scholar put it: "No Church or nation is saved en masse." The idea of a Chosen People will not hold water for this basic reason. The relationship with God is an individual relationship. A man must give his own heart and surrender his own life to God. God does not call men in crowds; he has "His own secret stairway into every heart." A man is not saved because he is a member of a nation or of a family, or because he has inherited righteousness and salvation from his ancestors; he is saved because he has made a personal decision for God. It is not now the whole nation who are lumped together as the Chosen People. It is those individual men and women who have given their hearts to God, of whom the remnant is composed.

Paul's argument is that the Jewish nation has not been rejected; but it is not the nation as a whole, but the faithful remnant within it who are the true Jews.

What of the others? It is here that Paul has a terrible thought. He has the idea of God sending a kind of torpor upon them, a drowsy sleep in which they cannot and will not hear. He puts together the thought of a series of Old Testament passages to prove this ( Deuteronomy 29:4; Isaiah 6:9-10; Isaiah 29:10). He quotes Psalms 69:22-23. "Let their table become a snare." The idea is that men are sitting feasting comfortably at their banquet; and their very sense of safety has become their ruin. They are so secure in their fancied safety that the enemy can come upon them all unaware. That is what the Jews were like. They were so secure, so self-satisfied, so at ease in their confidence of being the Chosen People, that that very idea had become the thing that ruined them.

The day will come when they cannot see at all, and when they will grope with bent backs like men stumbling blindly in the dark. In Romans 11:7 the King James Version says, "they have been blinded." More correctly, it should be, "they have been hardened." The verb is poroun ( G4456) . The noun porosis ( G4457) will give us the meaning better. It is a medical word, and it means a callus. It was specially used for the callus which forms round the fracture when a bone is broken, the hard bone formation which helps to mend the break. When a callus grows on any part of the body that part loses feeling. It becomes insensitive. The minds of the mass of the people have become insensitive; they can no longer hear and feel the appeal of God.

It can happen to any man. If a man takes his own way long enough, he will in the end become insensitive to the appeal of God. If he goes on sinning, he will in the end become insensitive to the horror of sin and the fascination of goodness. If a man lives long enough in ugly conditions he will in the end become insensitive to them. As Burns wrote:

"I waive the quantum of the sin,

The hazard of concealing;

But och! it hardens a' within,

And petrifies the feeling!"

Just as a callus can grow on the hand, a callus can grow on the heart. That is what had happened to the mass of Israel. God save us from that!

But Paul has more to say. That is tragedy, but out of it God has brought good, because that very insensitiveness of Israel opened the way to the Gentiles to come in. Because Israel did not want the message of the good news, it went out to people who were ready to welcome it. Israel's refusal has enriched the world.

Then Paul touches on the dream which is behind it all. If the refusal of Israel has enriched the world by opening a door to the Gentiles, what will the riches be like at the end of the day, when God's plan is fully completed and Israel comes in, too?

So, in the end, after tragedy comes the hope. Israel became insensitive, the nation with the callus on her heart; the Gentiles came by faith and trust into the love of God; but a day will come when the love of God will act like a solvent, even on the callus of the heart, and both Gentile and Jew will be gathered in. It is Paul's conviction that nothing in the end can defeat the love of God.

THE WILD OLIVE--PRIVILEGE AND WARNING ( Romans 11:13-24 )

11:13-24 Now I speak to you Gentiles. You well know that in so far as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my office, for somehow I want to find a way to move my own flesh and blood to envy of the Gentiles, so that I may save some of them; for, if the fact that they are cast away has resulted in the reconciliation of the world to God, what will their reception mean? It can only be like life from the dead! If the first part of the dough is consecrated to God, so is the whole lump; if the root is consecrated to God, so are the branches. If some of the branches have been cut off, and if you like a wild olive have been grafted in among them, and if you have become a sharer in the rich root of the olive, do not allow yourself to look down boastfully upon the branches. If you are tempted to act like that, remember you do not bear the root but the root bears you. You will say: "Branches have been broken off that I may be grafted in." Well said! They were broken off because of their lack of faith; and you stand because of faith. Do not become proudly contemptuous, but keep yourself in godly fear; for if God did not spare the branches, which were natural branches, neither will he spare you. See, then, the kindness and the severity of God. On those who fell there comes the severity.. on you there comes the kindness of God, if only you remain in that kindness. If you do not, you, too, will be cut away. But they, if they do not continue in their lack of faith, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again. For, if you were cut from the olive, which is by nature a wild olive, and, if, contrary to nature, you were engrafted into the garden olive, how much more will the natural branches be engrafted into the olive to which they really belong?

It is to the Jews that Paul has been talking up to this time, and now he turns to the Gentiles. He is the apostle to the Gentiles, but he cannot ever forget his own people. In fact he goes the length of saving that one of his main objects is to move the Jews to envy when they see what Christianity has done for the Gentiles. One of the surest ways to make a man desire Christianity is to make him see in actual life what it can do.

There was a soldier who was wounded in battle. The padre crept out and did what he could for him. He stayed with him when the remainder of the troops retreated. In the heat of the day he gave him water from his own waterbottle, while he himself remained parched with thirst. In the night, when the chill frost came down, he covered the wounded man with his own coat, and finally wrapped him up in even more of his clothes to save him from the cold. In the end the wounded man looked up at the padre. "Padre," he said, "you're a Christian?" "I try to be," said the padre. "Then," said the wounded man, "if Christianity makes a man do for another man what you have done for me, tell me about it, because I want it." Christianity in action moved him to envy a faith which could produce a life like that.

It was Paul's hope and prayer and ambition that some day the Jews would see what Christianity had done for the Gentiles and be moved to desire it.

To Paul it would be paradise if the Jews came in. If the rejection of the Jews had done so much, if, through it, the Gentile world had been reconciled to God, what superlative glory must come when the Jews came in. If the tragedy of rejection has had results so wonderful, what will the happy ending be like, when the tragedy of rejection has changed to the glory of reception? Paul can only say that it will be like life from the dead.

Then Paul uses two pictures to show that the Jews can never be finally rejected. All food, before it was eaten, had to be offered to God. So the law laid it down ( Numbers 15:19-20) that, if dough was being prepared, the first part of it must be offered to God; when that was done, the whole lump of dough became sacred. It was not necessary, as it were, to offer every separate mouthful to God. The offering of the first part sanctified the whole. It was a common thing to plant sacred trees in places sacred to the gods. When the sapling was planted, it was dedicated to God; and thereafter every branch that came from it was sacred to God.

What Paul deduces from that is this--the patriarchs were sacred to God; they had in a special way heard God's voice and obeyed God's word; in a special way they had been chosen and consecrated by God. From them the whole nation sprang; and just as the first consecrated handful of dough made the whole lump sacred and the dedication of the sapling made the whole tree sacred, so the special consecration of its founders made the whole nation sacred in a special way to God. There is truth here. The remnant in Israel did not make themselves what they were; they inherited faith from their forefathers before them. Every one of us lives to some extent on the spiritual capital of the past. None of us is self-made. We are what godly parents and ancestors have made us; and, even if we strayed far away and shamed our heritage, we cannot totally part ourselves from the goodness and fidelity that made us what we are.

Paul goes on to use a long allegory. More than once the prophets had pictured the nation of Israel as the olive tree of God. That was natural, because the olive tree was the common est and most useful tree in the Mediterranean world. "The Lord once called you a green olive tree, fair with goodly fruit" ( Jeremiah 11:16). "His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive" ( Hosea 14:6). So Paul thinks of the Gentiles as branches of wild olive engrafted into the garden olive tree which was Israel. From the point of view of horticulture Paul's picture is impossible. In horticulture it is the good olive that is grafted into the stock of the wild olive so that a fruit-bearing olive may result. The process that Paul pictures was never used in actual practice, because it would have served no useful purpose. But the point Paul wishes to make is quite clear. The Gentiles had been out in the deserts and the wildernesses and among the wild briars; and now, by the act of God's grace, they are engrafted into the richness and fertility of the garden olive tree.

Out of this picture Paul has two words to speak.

(i) The first is a word of warning. It would have been easy for the Gentiles to develop an attitude of contempt. Had not the Jews been rejected that they might enter in? In a world where the Jews were universally hated such an attitude would have been all too easy. Paul's warning is still necessary. In effect, he says there would have been no such thing as Christianity unless there had been Judaism first. It will be a bad day when the Christian Church forgets its debt to the root from which it sprang. It has a debt to Judaism which it can never pay by any other means than by bringing Christianity to the Jews. So Paul warns the Gentiles against contempt. Grimly, he says that if the true branches were lopped off because of their unbelief, still more can that happen to the branches which were only grafted on.

(ii) The second is a word of hope. The Gentiles have experienced God's kindness; and the Jews his severity. If the Gentiles remain in faith they will remain in that kindness; but, if the Jews come out of their unbelief and enter into belief, once again they, too, will be engrafted in; for, says Paul, if it was possible for a wild olive to be engrafted into the garden olive tree, how much more is it possible that the olive tree's own natural branches can be grafted in again? Once again Paul is dreaming of the day when the Jews will come in.

Much in this passage is hard to understand. It thinks in pictures which are out of our world altogether; but one thing is crystal clear--the connection between Judaism and Christianity, between the old and the new. Here is the answer to those who wish to discard the Old Testament as merely a Jewish book which is irrelevant for Christianity. He is a foolish man who kicks away the ladder which raised him to the height which he has reached. It would be a foolish branch which cut itself off from its stem. The Jewish faith is the root from which Christianity grew. The consummation will come only when the wild olive and the garden olive are one, and when there are no branches at all left unengrafted on the parent stem.

THAT ALL MAY BE OF MERCY ( Romans 11:25-32 )

11:25-32 Brothers, I do want you to grasp this secret which only those who know God can understand, because I do not want you to become conceited about your own wisdom. I want you to understand that it is only a partial hardening which has happened to Israel, and it will last only until the full number of the Gentiles shall have come in. And then, in the end, all Israel will be saved, as it stands written: "A Saviour will come forth from Zion; and he will remove all kinds of wickedness from Jacob. This is the fulfilment of my covenant with them when I take away their sins." As far as the good news goes, they are enemies of God--but it is for your sake. But as far as God's choice goes, they are beloved of God, for their fathers' sakes, for the free gifts and the calling of God can never be gone back upon. Once you disobeyed God, but now you have found his mercy because of their disobedience; just so, they have now disobeyed, so that they now may enter into the same mercy as you have now found. For God has shut up all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.

Paul is coming to the end of his argument. He has faced a bewildering, and, for a Jew, a heartbreaking situation. Somehow he has had to find an explanation of the fact that God's people rejected his Son when he came into the world. Paul never shut his eyes to that tragic fact, but he found a way in which the whole tragic situation could be fitted into the plan of God. It is true that the Jews rejected Christ; but. as Paul saw it, that rejection happened in order that Christ might be offered to the Gentiles. To maintain the sovereignty of God's purpose, Paul even went the length of saying that it was he himself who hardened the hearts of the Jews in order to open a way to the Gentiles; but, even then, however contradictory it might sound, he still insisted on the personal responsibility of the Jews for their failure to accept God's offer. Paul held fast at one and the same time to divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But now comes the note of hope. His argument is a little complicated, and it will make it easier if we try to separate the various strands in it.

(i) Paul was sure that this hardening of the hearts of the Jews was neither total nor permanent. It was to serve a purpose, and when that purpose had been achieved, it would be taken away.

(ii) Paul sets out the paradox of the Jewish place in the plan of God. In order that the Gentiles might come in and that the universal purpose of the gospel might be fulfilled, the Jews had arrived at a situation where they were the enemies of God. The word that Paul uses is echthroi ( G2190) . It is difficult to translate, because it has both an active and a passive meaning. It can mean either hating or hated. It may well be that in this passage it has to be read in the two meanings at the one time. The Jews were hostile to God and had refused his offer, and therefore they were under his displeasure. That was the present fact about the Jews. But there was another fact about them. Nothing could alter the fact that they were God's chosen people and had a special place in his plan. No matter what they did, God could never go back upon his word. His promise had been made to the fathers, and it must be fulfilled. It was therefore clear to Paul, and he quotes Isaiah 59:20-21 to prove it, that God's rejection of the Jews could not be permanent; they, too, in the end must come in.

(iii) Then Paul has a strange thought. "God," he says, "shut up all men to disobedience that he may have mercy upon all." The one thing Paul cannot conceive of is that any man of any nation could merit his own salvation. Now, if the Jews had observed complete obedience to God's will, they might well have reckoned that they had earned the salvation of God as a right. So Paul is saying that God involved the Jews in disobedience in order that when his salvation did come to them it might be unmistakably an act of his mercy and due in no way to their merit. Neither Jew nor Gentile could ever be saved apart from the mercy of God.

In many ways Paul's argument may seem strange to us and the "proofs" he brings forward unconvincing. Our minds and hearts may even shudder at some of the things he says. But the argument is not irrelevant, for the tremendous thing at the back of it is a philosophy of history. To Paul, God was in control. Nothing moved with aimless feet. Not even the most heartbreaking event was outside the purpose of God. Events could never run amok. The purposes of God could never be frustrated.

It is told that once a child stood at the window on a night when the gale was terrifying in its savage velocity. "God," she said, "must have lost grip of his winds tonight." To Paul, that was precisely what never happened. Nothing was ever out of God's control; everything was serving his purpose.

To that Paul would have added another tremendous conviction. He would have insisted that in it and through it all, Gods purpose was a purpose of salvation and not of destruction. It may well be that Paul would even have gone the length of saying that God's arranging of things was designed to save men even against their will. In the last analysis it was not the wrath of God which was pursuing men, but the love of God which was tracking them down.

The situation of Israel was exactly that which Francis Thompson so movingly portrayed in The Hound of Heaven.

"I fled him down the nights and down the days;

I fled him down the arches of the years;

I fled him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from him, and under running laughter.

But with unhurrying chase,

And unperturbed pace,

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat--and a Voice beat

More instant than the feet--

All things betray thee, who betrayest me.'"

Then comes the time when the fugitive is beaten.

"Naked I wait thy love's uplifted stroke!

My harness piece by piece thou hast hewn from me,

And smitten to my knee,

I am defenceless utterly."

Then comes the end:

"Halts by me that footfall;

Is my gloom. after all,

Shade of his hand, outstretched caressingly?

'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

I am he whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me!'"

That was exactly Israel's situation. They fought their long battle against God; they are still fighting it. But God's pursuing love is ever after them. Whatever else Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36 may sometimes read like, it is in the last analysis the story of the still uncompleted pursuit of love.

THE CRY OF THE ADORING HEART ( Romans 11:33-36 )

11:33-36 O the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How his decisions are beyond the mind of man to trace! How mysterious are his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or, who has become his counsellor? Who has first given anything to him, so that he is due any repayment from God? For all things come from him, and exist through him, and end in him. To him be glory for ever! Amen.

Paul never wrote a more characteristic passage than this. Here theology turns to poetry. Here the seeking of the mind turns to the adoration of the heart. In the end all must pass out in a mystery that man cannot now understand but at whose heart is love. If a man can say that all things come from God, that all things have their being through him, and that all things end in him, what more is left to say? There is a certain paradox in the human situation. God gave man a mind, and it is man's duty to use that mind to think to the very limit of human thought. But it is also true that there are times when that limit is reached and all that is left is to accept and to adore.

"How could I praise,

If such as I might understand?"

Paul had battled with a heartbreaking problem with every resource which his great mind possessed. He does not say that he has solved it, as one might neatly solve a geometrical problem; but he does say that, having done his best, he is content to leave it to the love and power of God. At many times in life there is nothing left but to say: "I cannot grasp thy mind, but with my whole heart I trust thy love. Thy will be done!"

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

Romans 11:21

Vs 21 A warning. Doesn’t this verse (one of many) answer the question, Can a Christian fall from grace?

For if God ... God rejected the Jews for their actions against Christ; and Gentile Christians will be rejected also if they turn against Christ.

If Israel (the “natural branches”) was not spared despite being God’s covenant nation, why should Gentiles, strangers to God’s covenants (Ephesians 2:11-12; see note on Romans 9:4), expect to be spared if they sin against the truth of the gospel? - MSB

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

For if God spared not the natural branches,.... That is, executed his righteous judgments, inflicted due punishment upon the Jews, unchurched them, and stripped them of those privileges they enjoyed in a church state; who were the natural descendants of Abraham; were naturally, and as born into the world, in a national church state and in that national covenant God made with that people; to whom belonged a national adoption, in which sense they were the sons of God, his firstborn; they were chosen by him as a special and peculiar people, to very great favours and privileges; they were Christ's own, he came of them according to the flesh, and was particularly sent unto them, and ministered among them; wherefore, if, at last, God did not spare this people, though he had for a long time done it, but stirred up all his wrath against them, they disbelieving his Son, rejecting and despising the Messiah, and salvation by him, this should awaken the fear, care, and caution of the Gentiles in a church state, lest if they behave not well, he should deal in like manner with them:

take heed lest he also spare not thee; for whatever was done to the Jews in former or latter times, are written for the instruction and admonition of Gentiles; and the use they are to make thereof is, to be careful and cautious, lest by imbibing principles derogatory from the grace of God and glory of Christ, or by an unbecoming walk and conversation they provoke the Lord to unchurch them as he has done the Jews before them; and which they may the rather fear, since the Jews were the natural branches, and they formerly strangers and aliens.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.   2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying,   3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.   4 But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.   5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.   6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.   7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded   8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.   9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:   10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.   11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.   12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?   13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:   14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.   15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?   16 For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.   17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;   18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.   19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.   20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear:   21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.   22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.   23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.   24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?   25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.   26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:   27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.   28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.   29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.   30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:   31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.   32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

      The apostle proposes here a plausible objection, which might be urged against the divine conduct in casting off the Jewish nation (Romans 11:1; Romans 11:1): "Hath God cast away his people? Is the rejection total and final? Are they all abandoned to wrath and ruin, and that eternal? Is the extent of the sentence so large as to be without reserve, or the continuance of it so long as to be without repeal? Will he have no more a peculiar people to himself?" In opposition to this, he shows that there was a great deal of goodness and mercy expressed along with this seeming severity, particularly he insists upon three things:-- 1. That, though some of the Jews were cast off, yet they were not all so. 2. That, though the body of the Jews were cast off, yet the Gentiles were taken in. And, 3. That, though the Jews were cast off at present, yet in God's due time they should be taken into his church again.

      I. The Jews, it is true, were many of them cast off, but not all. The supposition of this he introduces with a God forbid. He will by no means endure such a suggestions. God had made a distinction between some of them and others.

      1. There was a chosen remnant of believing Jews, that obtained righteousness and life by faith in Jesus Christ, Romans 11:1-7; Romans 11:1-7. These are said to be such as he foreknew (Romans 11:2; Romans 11:2), that is, had thoughts of love to, before the world was; for whom he thus foreknew he did predestinate. her lies the ground of the difference. They are called the election (Romans 11:7; Romans 11:7), that is, the elect, God's chosen ones, whom he calls the election, because that which first distinguished them from the dignified them above others was God's electing love. Believers are the election, all those and those only whom God hath chosen. Now,

      (1.) He shows that he himself was one of them: For I also am an Israelite; as if he had said, "Should I say that all the Jews are rejected, I should cut off my own claims, and see myself abandoned." Paul was a chosen vessel (Acts 9:15), and yet he was of the seed of Abraham, and particularly of the tribe of Benjamin, the least and youngest of all the tribes of Israel.

      (2.) He suggests that as in Elias's time, so now, this chosen remnant was really more and greater than one would think it was, which intimates likewise that it is no new nor unusual thing for God's grace and favour to Israel to be limited and confined to a remnant of that people; for so it was in Elijah's time. The scripture saith it of Elias, en Elia--in the story of Elias, the great reformer of the Old Testament. Observe, [1.] His mistake concerning Israel; as if their apostasy in the days of Ahab was so general that he himself was the only faithful servant God had in the world. He refers to 1 Kings 19:14, where (it is here said) he maketh intercession to God against Israel. A strange kind of intercession: entynchanei to Theo kata tou Israel--He deals with God against Israel; so it may be read; so entynchano is translated, Acts 25:24. The Jews enetychon moi--have dealt with me. In prayer we deal with God, commune with him, discourse with him: it is said of Elijah (James 5:17) that he prayed in praying. We are then likely to pray in praying, to make a business of that duty, when we pray as those that are dealing with God in the duty. Now Elijah in this prayer spoke as if there were one left faithful in Israel but himself. See to what a low ebb the profession of religion may sometimes be brought, and how much the face of it may be eclipsed, that the most wise and observing men may give it up for gone. So it was in Elijah's time. That which makes the show of a nation is the powers and the multitude. The powers of Israel were then persecuting powers: They have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars, and they seek my life. The multitude of Israel were then idolatrous: I am left alone. Thus those few that were faithful to God were not only lost in the crowd of idolaters, but crushed and driven into corners by the rage of persecutors. When the wicked rise, a man is hidden,Proverbs 28:12.-- Digged down thine altars; not only neglected them, and let them go out of repair, but digged them down. When altars were set up for Baal, it is no wonder if God's altars were pulled down; they could not endure that standing testimony against their idolatry. This was his intercession against Israel; as if he had said, "Lord, is not this a people ripe for ruin, worthy to be cast off? What else canst thou do for thy great name?" It is a very sad thing for any person or people to have the prayers of God's people against them, especially of God's prophets, for God espouses, and sooner or later will visibly own, the cause of his praying people. [2.] The rectifying of this mistake by the answer of God (Romans 11:4; Romans 11:4): I have reserved. Note, First, Things are often much better with the church of God than wise and good men think they are. They are ready to conclude hardly, and to give up all for gone, when it is not so. Secondly, In times of general apostasy, there is usually a remnant that keep their integrity--some, though but a few; all do not go one way. Thirdly, That when there is a remnant who keep their integrity in times of general apostasy it is God that reserves to himself that remnant. If he had left them to themselves, they had gone down the stream with the rest. It is his free and almighty grace that makes the difference between them and others.--Seven thousand: a competent number to bear their testimony against the idolatry of Israel, and yet, compared with the many thousands of Israel, a very small number, one of a city, and two of a tribe, like the grape-gleanings of the vintage. Christ's flock is but a little flock; and yet, when they come all together at last, they will be a great and innumerable multitude, Revelation 7:9. Now the description of this remnant is that they had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, which was then the reigning sin of Israel. In court, city, and country, Baal had the ascendant; and the generality of people, more or less, paid their respect to Baal. The best evidence of integrity is a freedom from the present prevailing corruptions of the times and places that we live in, to swim against the stream when it is strong. Those God will own for his faithful witnesses that are bold in bearing their testimony to the present truth, 2 Peter 1:12. This is thank-worthy, not to bow to Baal when every body bows. Sober singularity is commonly the badge of true sincerity. [3.] The application of this instance to the case in hand: Even so at this present time,Romans 11:5-7; Romans 11:5-7. God's methods of dispensation towards his church are as they used to be. As it has been, so it is. In Elijah's time there was a remnant, and so there is now. If then there was a remnant left under the Old Testament, when the displays of grace were less clear and the pourings out of the Spirit less plentiful, much more now under the gospel, when the grace of God, which bringeth salvation, appears more illustrious.--A remnant, a few of many, a remnant of believing Jews when the rest were obstinate in their unbelief. This is called a remnant according to the election of grace; they are such as were chosen from eternity in the counsels of divine love to be vessels of grace and glory. Whom he did predestinate those he called. If the difference between them and others be made purely by the grace of God, as certainly it is (I have reserved them, saith he, to myself), then it must needs be according to the election; for we are sure that whatever God does he does it according to the counsel of his own will. Now concerning this remnant we may observe, First, Whence it takes its rise, from the free grace of God (Romans 11:6; Romans 11:6), that grace which excludes works. The eternal election, in which the difference between some and others is first founded, is purely of grace, free grace; not for the sake of works done or foreseen; if so, it would not be grace. Gratia non est ullo modo gratia, si non sit omni modo gratuita--It is not grace, properly so called, if it be not perfectly free. Election is purely according to the good pleasure of his will, Ephesians 1:5. Paul's heart was so full of the freeness of God's grace that in the midst of his discourse he turns aside, as it were, to make this remark, If of grace, then not of works. And some observe that faith itself, which in the matter of justification if opposed to works, is here included in them; for faith has a peculiar fitness to receive the free grace of God for our justification, but not to receive that grace for our election. Secondly, What it obtains: that which Israel, that is, the body of that people, in van sought for (Romans 11:7; Romans 11:7): Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, that is, justification, and acceptance with God (see Romans 9:31; Romans 9:31), but the election have obtained it. In them the promise of God has its accomplishment, and God's ancient kindness for that people is remembered. He calls the remnant of believers, not the elect, but the election, to show that the sole foundation of all their hopes and happiness is laid in election. They were the persons whom God had in his eye in the counsels of his love; they are the election; they are God's choice. Such was the favour of God to the chosen remnant. But,

      2. The rest were blinded,Romans 11:7; Romans 11:7. Some are chosen and called, and the call is made effectual. But others are left to perish in their unbelief; nay, they are made worse by that which should have made them better. The gospel, which to those that believed was the savour of life unto life, to the unbelieving was the savour of death unto death. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay. Good old Simeon foresaw that the child Jesus was set for the fall, as well as for the rising again, of many in Israel, Luke 2:34.-- Were blinded; eporothesan--they were hardened; so some. They were seared, and made brawny and insensible. They could neither see the light, nor feel the touch, of gospel grace. Blindness and hardness are expressive of the same senselessness and stupidity of spirit. They shut their eyes, and would not see; this was their sin: and then God, in a way of righteous judgment, blinded their eyes, that they could not see; this was their punishment. This seemed harsh doctrine: to qualify it, therefore, he vouches two witnesses out of the Old Testament, who speak of such a thing.

      (1.) Isaiah, who spoke of such a judgment in his day, Isaiah 29:10; Isaiah 6:9. The spirit of slumber, that is, an indisposedness to mind either their duty or interest. They are under the power of a prevailing unconcernedness, like people that are slumbering and sleeping; not affected with any thing that is said or done. They were resolved to continue as they were, and would not stir. The following words explain what is meant by the spirit of slumber: Eyes, that they should not see, and ears, that they should not hear. They had the faculties, but in the things that belonged to their peace they had not the use of those faculties; they were quite infatuated, they saw Christ, but they did not believe in him; they heard his word, but they did not receive it; and so both their hearing and their seeing were in vain. It was all one as if they had neither seen nor heard. Of all judgments spiritual judgments are the sorest, and most to be dreaded, though they make the least noise.--Unto this day. Ever since Esaias prophesied, this hardening work has been in the doing; some among them have been blind and senseless. Or, rather, ever since the first preaching of the gospel: though they have had the most convincing evidences that could be of the truth of it, the most powerful preaching, the fairest offers, the clearest calls from Christ himself, and from his apostles, yet to this day they are blinded. It is still true concerning multitudes of them, even to this day in which we live; they are hardened and blinded, the obstinacy and unbelief go by succession from generation to generation, according to their own fearful imprecation, which entailed the curse: His blood be upon us and upon our children.

      (2.) David (Romans 11:9; Romans 11:10), quoted from Psalms 69:22; Psalms 69:23, where David having in the Spirit foretold the sufferings of Christ from his own people the Jews, particularly that of their giving him vinegar to drink (Romans 11:21; Romans 11:21, which was literally fulfilled, Matthew 27:48), an expression of the greatest contempt and malice that could be, in the next words, under the form of an imprecation, he foretels the dreadful judgments of God upon them for it: Let their table become a snare, which the apostle here applies to the present blindness of the Jews, and the offence they took at the gospel, which increased their hardness. This teaches us how to understand other prayers of David against his enemies; they are to be looked upon as prophetic of the judgments of God upon the public and obstinate enemies of Christ and his kingdom. His prayer that it might be so was a prophecy that it should be so, and not the private expression of his own angry resentments. It was likewise intended to justify God, and to clear his righteousness in such judgments. He speaks here, [1.] Of the ruin of their comforts: Let their table be made a snare, that is, as the psalmist explains it, Let that which should be for their welfare be a trap to them. The curse of God will turn meat into poison. It is a threatening like that in Malachi 2:2, I will curse your blessings. Their table a snare, that is, an occasion of sin and an occasion of misery. Their very food, that should nourish them, shall choke them. [2.] Of the ruin of their powers and faculties (Romans 11:10; Romans 11:10), their eyes darkened, their backs bowed down, that they can neither find the right way, nor, if they could, are they able to walk in it. The Jews, after their national rejection of Christ and his gospel, became infatuated in their politics, so that their very counsels turned against them, and hastened their ruin by the Romans. They looked like a people designed for slavery and contempt, their backs bowed down, to be ridden and trampled upon by all the nations about them. Or, it may be understood spiritually; their backs are bowed down in carnality and worldly-mindedness. Curvæ in terris animæ--They mind earthly things. This is an exact description of the state and temper of the present remainder of that people, than whom, if the accounts we have of them be true, there is not a more worldly, wilful, blind, selfish, ill-natured, people in the world. They are manifestly to this day under the power of this curse. Divine curses will work long. It is a sign we have our eyes darkened if we are bowed down in worldly-mindedness.

      II. Another thing which qualified this doctrine of the rejection of the Jews was that though they were cast off and unchurched, yet the Gentiles were taken in (Romans 11:11-14; Romans 11:11-14), which he applies by way of caution to the Gentiles, Romans 11:17-22; Romans 11:17-22.

      1. The rejection of the Jews made room for the reception of the Gentiles. The Jews' leavings were a feast for the poor Gentiles (Romans 11:11; Romans 11:11): "Have they stumbled that they should fall? Had God no other end in forsaking and rejecting them than their destruction?" He startles at this, rejecting the thought with abhorrence, as usually he does when any thing is suggested which seems to reflect upon the wisdom, or righteousness, or goodness of God: God forbid! no, through their fall salvation is come to the Gentiles. Not but that salvation might have come to the Gentiles if they had stood; but by the divine appointment it was so ordered that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles upon the Jews' refusal of it. Thus in the parable (Matthew 22:8; Matthew 22:9), Those that were first bidden were not worthy--Go ye therefore into the highways,Luke 14:21. And so it was in the history (Acts 13:46): It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but, seeing you put it from you, lo, we turn to the Gentiles; so Acts 18:6. God will have a church in the world, will have the wedding furnished with guests; and, if one will not come, another will, or why was the offer made? The Jews had the refusal, and so the tender came to the Gentiles. See how Infinite Wisdom brings light out of darkness, good out of evil, meat out of the eater, and sweetness out of the strong. To the same purport he says (Romans 11:12; Romans 11:12), The fall of them was the riches of the world, that is, it hastened the gospel so much the sooner into the Gentile world. The gospel is the greatest riches of the place where it is; it is better than thousands of gold and silver. Or, The riches of the Gentiles was the multitude of converts among them. True believers are God's jewels. To the same purport (Romans 11:15; Romans 11:15): The casting away of them is the reconciling of the world. God's displeasure towards them made way for his favour towards the Gentiles. God was in Christ reconciling the world,2 Corinthians 5:19. And therefore he took occasion from the unbelief of the Jews openly to disavow and disown them, though they had been his peculiar favourites, to show that in dispensing his favours he would now no longer act in such a way of peculiarity and restriction, but that in every nation he that feared God and wrought righteousness should be accepted of him, Acts 10:34; Acts 10:35.

      2. The use that the apostle makes of this doctrine concerning the substitution of the Gentiles in the room of the Jews.

      (1.) As a kinsman to the Jews, here is a word of excitement and exhortation to them, to stir them up to receive and embrace the gospel-offer. This God intended in his favour to the Gentiles, to provoke the Jews to jealousy (Romans 11:11; Romans 11:11), and Paul endeavours to enforce it accordingly (Romans 11:14; Romans 11:14): If by any means I might provoke to emulation those who are my flesh. "Shall the despised Gentiles run away with all the comforts and privileges of the gospel, and shall not we repent of our refusal, and now at last put in for a share? Shall not we believe and obey, and be pardoned and saved, as well as the Gentiles?" See an instance of such an emulation in Esau, Genesis 28:6-9. There is a commendable emulation in the affairs of our souls: why should not we be as holy and happy as any of our neighbours? In this emulation there needs no suspicion, undermining or countermining; for the church has room enough, and the new covenant grace and comfort enough, for us all. The blessings are not lessened by the multitudes of the sharers.--And might save some of them. See what was Paul's business, to save souls; and yet the utmost he promises himself is but to save some. Though he was such a powerful preacher, spoke and wrote with such evidence and demonstration of the Spirit, yet of the many he dealt with he could but save some. Ministers must think their pains well bestowed if they can but be instrumental to save some.

      (2.) As an apostle to the Gentiles, here is a word of caution for them: "I speak to you Gentiles. You believing Romans, you hear what riches of salvation are come to you by the fall of the Jews, but take heed lest you do any thing to forfeit it." Paul takes this, as other occasions, to apply his discourse to the Gentiles, because he was the apostle of the Gentiles, appointed for the service of their faith, to plant and water churches in the Gentile nations. This was the purport of his extraordinary mission, Acts 22:21, I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles; compare Acts 9:15. It was likewise the intention of his ordination, Galatians 2:9. Compare Acts 13:2. It ought to be our great and special care to do good to those that are under our charge: we must particularly mind that which is our own work. It was an instance of God's great love to the poor Gentiles that he appointed Paul, who in gifts and graces excelled all the apostles, to be the apostle of the Gentiles. The Gentile world was a wider province; and the work to be done in it required a very able, skilful, zealous, courageous workman: such a one was Paul. God calls those to special work whom he either sees or makes fit for it.--I magnify my office. There were those that vilified it, and him because of it. It was because he was the apostle of the Gentiles that the Jews were so outrageous against him (Acts 22:21; Acts 22:22), and yet he thought never the worse of it, though it set him up as the butt of all the Jewish rage and malice. It is a sign of true love to Jesus Christ to reckon that service and work for him truly honourable which the world looks upon with scorn, as mean and contemptible. The office of the ministry is an office to be magnified. Ministers are ambassadors for Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God, and for their work's sake are to be esteemed highly in love.--My office; ten diakonian mou--my ministry, my service, not my lordship and dominion. It was not the dignity and power, but the duty and work, of an apostle, that Paul was so much in love with. Now two things he exhorts the Gentiles to, with reference to the rejected Jews:--

      [1.] To have a respect for the Jews, notwithstanding, and to desire their conversion. This is intimated in the prospect he gives them of the advantage that would accrue to the church by their conversion, Romans 11:12; Romans 11:15. It would be as life from the dead; and therefore they must not insult and triumph over those poor Jews, but rather pity them, and desire their welfare, and long for the receiving of them in again.

      [2.] To take heed to themselves, lest they should stumble and fall, as they Jews had done, Romans 11:17-22; Romans 11:17-22. Here observe,

      First, The privilege which the Gentiles had by being taken into the church. They were grafted in (Romans 11:17; Romans 11:17), as a branch of a wild olive into a good olive, which is contrary to the way and custom of the husbandman, who grafts the good olive into the bad; but those that God grafts into the church he finds wild and barren, and good for nothing. Men graft to mend the tree; but God grafts to mend the branch. 1. The church of God is an olive-tree, flourishing and fruitful as an olive (Psalms 52:8), the fruit useful for the honour both of God and man, Judges 9:9. 2. Those that are out of the church are as wild olive-trees, not only useless, but what they do produce is sour and unsavoury: Wild by nature,Romans 11:24; Romans 11:24. This was the state of the poor Gentiles, that wanted church privileges, and in respect of real sanctification; and it is the natural state of every one of us, to be wild by nature. 3. Conversion is the grafting in of wild branches into the good olive. We must be cut off from the old stock, and be brought into union with a new root. 4. Those that are grafted into the good olive-tree partake of the root and fatness of the olive. It is applicable to a saving union with Christ; all that are by a lively faith grafted into Christ partake of him as the branches of the root--receive from his fulness. But it is here spoken of a visible church-membership, from which the Jews were as branches broken off; and so the Gentiles were grafted in, autois--among those that continued, or in the room of those that were broken off. The Gentiles, being grafted into the church, partake of the same privileges that the Jews did, the root and fatness. The olive-tree is the visible church (called so Jeremiah 11:16); the root of this tree was Abraham, not the root of communication, so Christ only is the root, but the root of administration, he being the first with whom the covenant was so solemnly made. Now the believing Gentiles partake of this root: he also is ason of Abraham (Luke 19:9), the blessing of Abraham comes upon the Gentiles (Galatians 3:14), the same fatness of the olive-tree, the same for substance, special protection, lively oracles, means of salvation, a standing ministry, instituted ordinances; and, among the rest, the visible church-membership of their infant seed, which was part of the fatness of the olive-tree that the Jews had, and cannot be imagined to be denied to the Gentiles.

      Secondly, A caution not to abuse these privileges. 1. "Be not proud (Romans 11:18; Romans 11:18): Boast not against the branches. Do not therefore trample upon the Jews as a reprobate people, nor insult over those that are broken off, much less over those that do continue." Grace is given, not to make us proud, but to make us thankful. The law of faith excludes all boasting either of ourselves or against others. "Do not say (Romans 11:19; Romans 11:19): They were broken off that I might be grafted in; that is, do not think that thou didst merit more at the hand of God than they, or didst stand higher in his favour." "But remember, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Though thou art grafted in, thou art still but a branch borne by the root; nay, and an engrafted branch, brought into the good olive contrary to nature (Romans 11:24; Romans 11:24), not free-born, but by an act of grace enfranchised and naturalized. Abraham, the root of the Jewish church, is not beholden to thee; but thou art greatly obliged to him, as the trustee of the covenant and the father of many nations. Therefore, if thou boast, know (this word must be supplied to clear the sense) thou bearest not the root but the root thee." 2. "Be not secure (Romans 11:20; Romans 11:20): Be not high-minded, but fear. Be not too confident of your own strength and standing." A holy fear is an excellent preservative against high-mindedness: happy is the man that thus feareth always. We need not fear but God will be true to his word; all the danger is lest we be false to ours. Let us therefore fear,Hebrews 4:1. The church of Rome now boasts of a patent of perpetual preservation; but the apostle here, in his epistle to that church when she was in her infancy and integrity, enters an express caveat against that boast, and all claims of that kind.--Fear what? "Why fear lest thou commit a forfeiture as they have done, lest thou lose the privileges thou now enjoyest, as they have lost theirs." The evils that befal others should be warnings to us. Go (saith God to Jerusalem Jeremiah 7:12), and see what I did to Shiloh; so now, let all the churches of God go and see what he did to Jerusalem, and what is become of the day of their visitation, that we may hear and fear, and take heed of Jerusalem's sin. The patent which churches have of their privileges is not for a certain term, nor entailed upon them and their heirs; but it runs as long as they carry themselves well, and no longer. Consider, (1.) "How they were broken off. It was not undeservedly, by an act of absolute sovereignty and prerogative, but because of unbelief." It seems, then, it is possible for churches that have long stood by faith to fall into such a state of infidelity as may be their ruin. Their unbelief did not only provoke God to cut them off, but they did by this cut themselves off; it was not only the meritorious, but the formal cause of their separation. "Now, thou art liable to the same infirmity and corruption that they fell by." Further observe, They were natural branches (Romans 11:21; Romans 11:21), not only interested in Abraham's covenant, but descending from Abraham's loins, and so born upon the premises, and thence had a kind of tenant-right: yet, when they sunk into unbelief, God did not spare them. Prescription, long usage, the faithfulness of their ancestors, would not secure them. It was in vain to plead, though they insisted much upon it, that they were Abraham's seed, Matthew 3:9; John 8:33. It is true they were the husbandmen to whom the vineyard was first let out; but, when they forfeited it, it was justly taken from them, Matthew 21:41; Matthew 21:43. This is called here severity,Romans 11:22; Romans 11:22. God laid righteousness to the line and judgment to the plummet, and dealt with them according to their sins. Severity is a word that sounds harshly; and I do not remember that it is any where else in scripture ascribed to God; and it is here applied to the unchurching of the Jews. God is most severe towards those that have been in profession nearest to him, if they rebel against him, Amos 3:2. Patience and privileges abused turn to the greatest wrath. Of all judgments, spiritual judgments are the sorest; for of these he is here speaking, Romans 11:8; Romans 11:8. (2.) "How thou standest, thou that art engrafted in." He speaks to the Gentile churches in general, though perhaps tacitly reflecting on some particular person, who might have expressed some such pride and triumph in the Jews' rejection. "Consider then," [1.] "By what means thou standest: By faith, which is a depending grace, and fetches in strength from heaven. Thou dost not stand in any strength of thy own, of which thou mightest be confident: thou art no more than the free grace of God makes thee, and his grace is his own, which he gives or withholds at pleasure. That which ruined them was unbelief, and by faith thou standest; therefore thou hast no faster hold than they had, thou standest on no firmer foundation than they did." [2.] "On what terms (Romans 11:22; Romans 11:22): Towards thee goodness, if thou continue in his goodness, that is, continue in a dependence upon and compliance with the free grace of God, the want of which it was that ruined the Jews--if thou be careful to keep up thine interest in the divine favour, by being continually careful to please God and fearful of offending him." The sum of our duty, the condition of our happiness, is to keep ourselves in the love of God. Fear the Lord and his goodness.Hosea 3:5.

      III. Another thing that qualified this doctrine of the Jews' rejection is that, though for the present they are cast off, yet the rejection is not final; but, when the fulness of time is come, they will be taken in again. They are not cast off for ever, but mercy is remembered in the midst of wrath. Let us observe,

      1. How this conversion of the Jews is here described. (1.) It is said to be their fulness (Romans 11:12; Romans 11:12), that is, the addition of them to the church, the filling up again of that place which became vacant by their rejection. This would be the enriching of the world (that is, the church in the world) with a great deal of light and strength and beauty. (2.) It is called the receiving of them. The conversion of a soul is the receiving of that soul, so the conversion of a nation. They shall be received into favour, into the church, into the love of Christ, whose arms are stretched out for the receiving of all those that will come to him. And this will be as life from the dead--so strange and surprising, and yet withal so welcome and acceptable. The conversion of the Jews will bring great joy to the church. See Luke 15:32, He was dead, and is alive; and therefore it was meet we should make merry and be glad. (3.) It is called the grafting of them in again (Romans 11:23; Romans 11:23), into the church, from which they had been broken off. That which is grafted in receives sap and virtue from the root; so does a soul that is truly grafted into the church receive life, and strength, and grace from Christ the quickening root. They shall be grafted into their own olive-tree (Romans 11:24; Romans 11:24); that is, into the church of which they had formerly been the most eminent and conspicuous members, to retrieve those privileges of visible church-membership which they had so long enjoyed, but have now sinned away and forfeited by their unbelief. (4.) It is called the saving of all Israel,Romans 11:26; Romans 11:26. True conversion may well be called salvation; it is salvation begun. See Acts 2:47. The adding of them to the church is the saving of them: tous sozomenous, in the present tense, are saved. When conversion-work goes on, salvation-work goes on.

      2. What it is grounded upon, and what reason we have to look for it.

      (1.) Because of the holiness of the first-fruits and the root, Romans 11:16; Romans 11:16. Some by the first-fruits understand those of the Jews that were already converted to the faith of Christ and received into the church, who were as the first-fruits dedicated to God, as earnests of a more plentiful and sanctified harvest. A good beginning promises a good ending. Why may we not suppose that others may be savingly wrought upon as well as those who are already brought in? Others by the first-fruits understand the same with the root, namely, the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from whom the Jews descended, and with whom, as the prime trustees, the covenant was deposited: and so they were the root of the Jews, not only as a people, but as a church. Now, if they were holy, which is not meant so much of inherent as of federal holiness--if they were in the church and in the covenant--then we have reason to conclude that God hath a kindness for the lump--the body of that people; and for the branches--the particular members of it. The Jews are in a sense a holy nation (Exodus 19:6), being descended from holy parents. Now it cannot be imagined that such a holy nation should be totally and finally cast off. This proves that the seed of believers, as such, are within the pale of the visible church, and within the verge of the covenant, till they do, by their unbelief, throw themselves out; for, if the root be holy, so are the branches. Though real qualifications are not propagated, yet relative privileges are. Though a wise man does not beget a wise man, yet a free man begets a free man. Though grace does not run in the blood, yet external privileges do (till they are forfeited), even to a thousand generations. Look how they will answer it another day that cut off the entail, by turning the seed of the faithful out of the church, and so not allowing the blessing of Abraham to come upon the Gentiles. The Jewish branches are reckoned holy, because the root was so. This is expressed more plainly (Romans 11:28; Romans 11:28): They are beloved for the fathers' sakes. In this love to the fathers the first foundation of their church-state was laid (Deuteronomy 4:37): Because he loved they fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them. And the same love would revive their privileges, for still the ancient loving-kindness is remembered; they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. It is God's usual method of grace. Kindness to the children for the father's sake is therefore called the kindness of God,2 Samuel 9:3; 2 Samuel 9:7. Though, as concerning the gospel (namely, in the present dispensation of it), they are enemies to it for your sakes, that is, for the sake of the Gentiles, against whom they have such an antipathy; yet, when God's time shall come, this will wear off, and God's love to their fathers will be remembered. See a promise that points at this, Leviticus 26:42. The iniquity of the fathers is visited but to the third and fourth generation; but there is mercy kept for thousands. Many fare the better for the sake of their godly ancestors. It is upon this account that the church is called their own olive-tree. Long it had been their own peculiar, which is some encouragement to us to hope that there may be room for them in it again, for old acquaintance-sake. That which hath been may be again. Though particular persons and generations wear off in unbelief, yet there having been a national church-membership, though for the present suspended, we may expect that it will be revived.

      (2.) Because of the power of God (Romans 11:23; Romans 11:23): God is able to graft them in again. The conversion of souls is a work of almighty power; and when they seem most hardened, and blinded, and obstinate, our comfort is that God is able to work a change, able to graft those in that have been long cast out and withered. When the house is kept by the strong man armed, with all his force, yet God is stronger than he, and is able to dispossess him. The condition of their restoration is faith: If they abide not still in unbelief. So that nothing is to be done but to remove that unbelief that is the great obstacle; and God is able to take that away, though nothing less than an almighty power will do it, the same power that raised up Christ from the dead, Ephesians 1:19; Ephesians 1:29. Otherwise, can these dry bones live?

      (3.) Because of the grace of God manifested to the Gentiles. Those that have themselves experienced the grace of God, preventing, distinguishing grace, may thence take encouragement to hope well concerning others. This is his argument (Romans 11:24; Romans 11:24): "If thou wast grafted into a good olive, that was wild by nature, much more shall these that were the natural branches, and may therefore be presumed somewhat nearer to the divine acceptance." This is a suggestion very proper to check the insolence of those Gentile Christians that looked with disdain and triumph upon the condition of the rejected Jews, and trampled upon them; as if he had said, "Their condition, bad as it is, is not so bad as yours was before your conversion; and therefore why may it not be made as good as yours is?" This is his argument (Romans 11:30; Romans 11:31): As you in times past have not, c. It is good for those that have found mercy with God to be often thinking what they were in time past, and how they obtained that mercy. This would help to soften our censures of those that still continue in unbelief, and quicken our prayers for them. He argues further from the occasion of the Gentiles' call, that is, the unbelief of the Jews thence it took rise: "You have obtained mercy through their unbelief; much more shall they obtain mercy through your mercy. If the putting out of their candle was the lighting of yours, by that power of God which brings good out of evil, much more shall the continued light of your candle, when God's time shall come, be a means of lighting theirs again." "That through your mercy they might obtain mercy, that is, that they may be beholden to you, as you have been to them." He takes it for granted that the believing Gentiles would do their utmost endeavour to work upon the Jews--that, when God had persuaded Japhet, Japhet would be labouring to persuade Shem. True grace hates monopolies. Those that have found mercy themselves should endeavour that through their mercy others also may obtain mercy.

      (4.) Because of the promises and prophecies of the Old Testament, which point at this. He quotes a very remarkable one, Romans 11:26; Isaiah 59:20; Isaiah 59:21. Where we may observe, [1.] The coming of Christ promised: There shall come out of Zion the deliverer. Jesus Christ is the great deliverer, which supposes mankind in a state of misery and danger. In Isaiah it is, the Redeemer shall come to Zion. There he is called the Redeemer; here the deliverer; he delivers in a way of redemption, by a price. There he is said to come to Zion, because when the prophet prophesied he was yet to come into the world, and Zion was his first head-quarters. Thither he came, there he took up his residence: but, when the apostle wrote this, he had come, he had been in Zion; and he is speaking of the fruits of his appearing, which shall come out of Zion; thence, as from the spring, issued forth those streams of living water which in the everlasting gospel watered the nations. Out of Zion went forth the law,Isaiah 2:3. Compare Luke 24:47. [2.] The end and purpose of this coming: He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Christ's errand into the world was to turn away ungodliness, to turn away the guilt by the purchase of pardoning mercy, and to turn away the power by the pouring out of renewing grace, to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), to separate between us and our sins, that iniquity might not be our ruin, and that it might not be our ruler. Especially to turn it away from Jacob, which is that for the sake of which he quotes the text, as a proof of the great kindness God intended for the seed of Jacob. What greater kindness could he do them than to turn away ungodliness from them, to take away that which comes between them and all happiness, take away sin, and then make way for all good? This is the blessing that Christ was sent to bestow upon the world, and to tender it to the Jews in the first place (Acts 3:26), to turn people from their iniquities. In Isaiah it is, The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto those that turn from transgression in Jacob, which shown who in Zion were to have a share in and to reap benefit by the deliverance promised, those and those only that leave their sins and turn to God; to them Christ comes as a Redeemer, but as an avenger to those that persist in impenitence. See Deuteronomy 30:2; Deuteronomy 30:3. Those that turn from sin will be owned as the true citizens of Zion (Ephesians 2:19), the right Jacob, Psalms 24:4; Psalms 24:6. Putting both these readings together, we learn that none have an interest in Christ but those that turn from their sins, nor can any turn from their sins but by the strength of the grace of Christ.--For this is my covenant with them--this, that the deliverer shall come to them--this, that my Spirit shall not depart from them, as it follows, Isaiah 59:21. God's gracious intentions concerning Israel were made the matter of a covenant, which the God that cannot lie could not but be true and faithful to. They were the children of the covenant,Acts 3:25. The apostle adds, When I shall take away their sins, which some think refers to Isaiah 27:9, or only to the foregoing words, to turn away ungodliness. Pardon of sin is laid as the foundation of all the blessings of the new covenant (Hebrews 8:12): For I will be merciful. Now from all this he infers that certainly God had great mercy in store for that people, something answerable to the extent of these rich promises: and he proves his inference (Romans 11:29; Romans 11:29) by this truth: For the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. Repentance is sometimes taken for a change of mind, and so God never repents, for he is in one mind and who can turn him? Sometimes for a change of way, and that is here understood, intimating the constancy and unchangeableness of that love of God which is founded in election. Those gifts and callings are immutable; whom he so loves, he loves to the end. We find God repenting that he had given man a being (Genesis 6:6, It repented the Lord that he had made man), and repenting that he had given a man honour and power (1 Samuel 15:11, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king); but we never find God repenting that he had given a man grace, or effectually called him; those gifts and callings are without repentance.

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

The circumstances under which the epistle to the Romans was written gave occasion to the most thorough and comprehensive unfolding, not of the church, but of Christianity. No apostle had ever yet visited Rome. There was somewhat as yet lacking to the saints there; but even this was ordered of God to call forth from the Holy Ghost an epistle which more than any other approaches a complete treatise on the fundamentals of Christian doctrine, and especially as to righteousness.

Would we follow up the heights of heavenly truth, would we sound the depths of Christian experience, would we survey the workings of the Spirit of God in the Church, would we bow before the glories of the person of Christ, or learn His manifold offices, we must look elsewhere in the writings of the New Testament no doubt, but elsewhere rather than here.

The condition of the Roman saints called for a setting forth of the gospel of God; but this object, in order to be rightly understood and appreciated, leads the apostle into a display of the condition of man. We have God and man in presence, so to speak. Nothing can be more simple and essential. Although there is undoubtedly that profoundness which must accompany every revelation of God, and especially in connection with Christ as now manifested, still we have God adapting Himself to the very first wants of a renewed soul nay, even to the wretchedness of souls without God, without any real knowledge either of themselves or of Him. Not, of course, that the Roman saints were in this condition; but that God, writing by the apostle to them, seizes the opportunity to lay bare man's state as well as His own grace.

Romans 1:1-32. From the very first we have these characteristics of the epistle disclosing themselves. The apostle writes with the full assertion of his own apostolic dignity, but as a servant also. "Paul, a bondman of Jesus Christ" an apostle "called," not born, still less as educated or appointed of man, but an apostle "called," as he says "separated unto the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets." The connection is fully owned with that which had been from God of old. No fresh revelations from God can nullify those which preceded them; but as the prophets looked onward to what was coming, so is the gospel already come, supported by the past. There is mutual confirmation. Nevertheless, what is in nowise the same as what was or what will be. The past prepared the way, as it is said here, "which God had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, [here we have the great central object of God's gospel, even the person of Christ, God's Son,] which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (ver. 3). This last relation was the direct subject of the prophetic testimony, and Jesus had come accordingly. He was the promised Messiah, born King of the Jews.

But there was far more in Jesus. He was "declared," says the apostle, "to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead" ( ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν , ver. 4). It was the Son of God not merely as dealing with the powers of the earth, Jehovah's King on the holy hill of Zion, but after a far deeper manner. For, essentially associated as He is with the glory of God the Father, the full deliverance of souls from the realm of death was His also. In this too we have the blessed connection of the Spirit (here peculiarly designated, for special reasons, "the Spirit of holiness"). That same energy of the Holy Ghost which had displayed itself in Jesus, when He walked in holiness here below, was demonstrated in resurrection; and not merely in His own rising from the dead, but in raising such at any time no doubt, though most signally and triumphantly displayed in His own resurrection.

The bearing of this on the contents and main doctrine of the epistle will appear abundantly by-and-by. Let me refer in passing to a few points more in the introduction, in order to link them together with that which the Spirit was furnishing to the Roman saints, as well as to show the admirable perfectness of every word that inspiration has given us. I do not mean by this its truth merely, but its exquisite suitability; so that the opening address commences the theme in hand, and insinuates that particular line of truth which the Holy Spirit sees fit to pursue throughout. To this then the apostle comes, after having spoken of the divine favour shown himself, both when a sinner, and now in his own special place of serving the Lord Jesus. "By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith." This was no question of legal obedience, although the law came from Jehovah. Paul's joy and boast were in the gospel of God. So therefore it addressed itself to the obedience of faith; not by this meaning practice, still less according to the measure of a man's duty, but that which is at the root of all practice faith-obedience obedience of heart and will, renewed by divine grace, which accepts the truth of God. To man this is the hardest of all obedience; but when once secured, it leads peacefully into the obedience of every day. If slurred over, as it too often is in souls, it invariably leaves practical obedience lame, and halt, and blind.

It was for this then that Paul describes himself as apostle. And as it is for obedience of faith, it was not in anywise restricted to the Jewish people "among all nations, for his (Christ's) name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ" (verses 5, 6). He loved even here at the threshold to show the breadth of God's grace. If he was called, so were they he an apostle, they not apostles but saints; but still, for them as for him, all flowed out of the same mighty love, of God. "To all that be at Rome, beloved of God, called saints" (ver. 7). To these then he wishes, as was his wont, the fresh flow of that source and stream of divine blessing which Christ has made to be household bread to us: "Grace and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ" (ver. 7). Then, from ver. 8, after thanking God through Jesus for their faith spoken of everywhere, and telling them of his prayers for them, he briefly discloses the desire of his heart about them his long-cherished hope according to the grace of the gospel to reach Rome his confidence in the love of God that through him some spiritual gift would be imparted to them, that they might be established, and, according to the spirit of grace which filled his own heart, that he too might be comforted together with them "by the mutual faith both of you and me" (vv. 11, 12). There is nothing like the grace of God for producing the truest humility, the humility that not only descends to the lowest level of sinners to do them good, but which is itself the fruit of deliverance from that self-love which puffs itself or lowers others. Witness the common joy that grace gives an apostle with saints be had never seen, so that even he should be comforted as well as they by their mutual faith. He would not therefore have them ignorant how they had lain on his heart for a visit (ver. 13). He was debtor both to the Greeks and the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise; he was ready, as far as he was concerned, to preach the gospel to those that were at Rome also (ver. 14, 15). Even the saints there would have been all the better for the gospel. It was not merely "to those at Rome," but "to you that be at Rome." Thus it is a mistake to suppose that saints may not be benefited by a better understanding of the gospel, at least as Paul preached it. Accordingly he tells them now what reason he had to speak thus strongly, not of the more advanced truths, but of the good news. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek" (ver. 16).

Observe, the gospel is not simply remission of sins, nor is it only peace with God, but "the power of God unto salvation." Now I take this opportunity of pressing on all that are here to beware of contracted views of "salvation." Beware that you do not confound it with souls being quickened, or even brought into joy. Salvation supposes not this only, but a great deal more. There is hardly any phraseology that tends to more injury of souls in these matters than a loose way of talking of salvation. "At any rate he is a saved soul," we hear. "The man has not got anything like settled peace with God; perhaps he hardly knows his sins forgiven; but at least he is a saved soul." Here is an instance of what is so reprehensible. This is precisely what salvation does not mean; and I would strongly press it on all that hear me, more particularly on those that have to do with the work of the Lord, and of course ardently desire to labour intelligently; and this not alone for the conversion, but for the establishment and deliverance of souls. Nothing less, I am persuaded, than this full blessing is the line that God has given to those who have followed Christ without the camp, and who, having been set free from the contracted ways of men, desire to enter into the largeness and at the same time the profound wisdom of every word of God. Let us not stumble at the starting-point, but leave room for the due extent and depth of "salvation" in the gospel.

There is no need of dwelling now on "salvation" as employed in the Old Testament, and in some parts of the New, as the gospels and Revelation particularly, where it is used for deliverance in power or even providence and present things. I confine myself to its doctrinal import, and the full Christian sense of the word; and I maintain that salvation signifies that deliverance for the believer which is the full consequence of the mighty work of Christ, apprehended not, of course, necessarily according to all its depth in God's eyes, but at any rate applied to the soul in the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not the awakening of conscience, however real; neither is it the attraction of heart by the grace of Christ, however blessed this may be. We ought therefore to bear in mind, that if a soul be not brought into conscious deliverance as the fruit of divine teaching, and founded on the work of Christ, we are very far from presenting the gospel as the apostle Paul glories in it, and delights that it should go forth. "I am not ashamed," etc.

And he gives his reason: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, The just shall live by faith." That is, it is the power of God unto salvation, not because it is victory (which at the beginning of the soul's career would only give importance to man even if possible, which it is not), but because it is "the righteousness of God." It is not God seeking, or man bringing righteousness. In the gospel there is revealed God's righteousness. Thus the introduction opened with Christ's person, and closes with God's righteousness. The law demanded, but could never receive righteousness from man. Christ is come, and has changed all. God is revealing a righteousness of His own in the gospel. It is God who now makes known a righteousness to man, instead of looking for any from man. Undoubtedly there are fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, and God values them I will not say from man, but from His saints; but here it is what, according to the apostle, God has for man. It is for the saints to learn, of course; but it is that which goes out in its own force and necessary aim to the need of man a divine righteousness, which justifies instead of condemning him who believes. It is "the power of God unto salvation." It is for the lost, therefore; for they it is who need salvation; and it is to save not merely to quicken, but to save; and this because in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed.

Hence it is, as he says, herein revealed "from faith," or by faith. It is the same form of expression exactly as in the beginning of Romans 5:1-21 "being justified by faith" ( ἐκ πίστεως ). But besides this he adds "to faith." The first of these phrases, "from faith," excludes the law; the second, "to faith," includes every one that has faith within the scope of God's righteousness. Justification is not from works of law. The righteousness of God is revealed from faith; and consequently, if there be faith in any soul, to this it is revealed, to faith wherever it may be. Hence, therefore, it was in no way limited to any particular nation, such as those that had already been under the law and government of God. It was a message that went out from God to sinners as such. Let man be what he might, or where he might, God's good news was for man. And to this agreed the testimony of the prophet. "The just shall live by faith" (not by law). Even where the law was, not by it but by faith the just lived. Did Gentiles believe? They too should live. Without faith there is neither justice nor life that God owns; where faith is, the rest will surely follow.

This accordingly leads the apostle into the earlier portion of his great argument, and first of all in a preparatory way. Here we pass out of the introduction of the epistle. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (ver. 18). This is what made the gospel to be so sweet and precious, and, what is more, absolutely necessary, if he would escape certain and eternal ruin. There is no hope for man otherwise; for the gospel is not all that is now made known. Not only is God's righteousness revealed, but also His wrath. It is not said to be revealed in the gospel. The gospel means His glad tidings for man. The wrath of God could not possibly be glad tidings. It is true, it is needful for man to learn; but in nowise is it good news. There is then the solemn truth also of divine wrath. It is not yet executed. It is "revealed," and this too "from heaven." There is no question of a people on earth, and of God's wrath breaking out in one form or another against human evil in this life. The earth, or, at least, the Jewish nation, had been familiar with such dealings of God in times past. But now it is "the wrath of God from heaven;" and consequently it is in view of eternal things, and not of those that touch present life on the earth.

Hence, as God's wrath is revealed from heaven, it is against every form of impiety "against all ungodliness." Besides this, which seems to be a most comprehensive expression for embracing every sort and degree of human iniquity, we have one very specifically named. It is against the "unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." To hold the truth in unrighteousness would be no security. Alas! we know how this was in Israel, how it might be, and has been, in Christendom. God pronounces against the unrighteousness of such; for if the knowledge, however exact, of God's revealed mind was accompanied by no renewal of the heart, if it was without life towards God, all must be vain. Man is only so much the worse for knowing the truth, if he holds it ever so fast with unrighteousness. There are some that find a difficulty here, because the expression "to hold" means holding firmly. But it is quite possible for the unconverted to be tenacious of the truth, yet unrighteous in their ways; and so much the worse for them. Not thus does God deal with souls. If His grace attract, His truth humbles, and leaves no room for vain boasting and self-confidence. What He does is to pierce and penetrate the man's conscience. If one may so say, He thus holds the man, instead of letting the man presume that he is holding fast the truth. The inner man is dealt with, and searched through and through.

Nothing of this is intended in the class that is here brought before us. They are merely persons who plume themselves on their orthodoxy, but in a wholly unrenewed condition. Such men have never been wanting since the truth has shone on this world; still less are they now. But the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against them pre-eminently. The judgments of God will fall on man as man, but the heaviest blows are reserved for Christendom. There the truth is held, and apparently with firmness too. This, however, will be put to the test by-and-by. But for the time it is held fast, though in unrighteousness. Thus the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against (not only the open ungodliness of men, but) the orthodox unrighteousness of those that hold the truth in unrighteousness.

And this leads the apostle into the moral history of man the proof both of his inexcusable guilt, and of his extreme need of redemption. He begins with the great epoch of the dispensations of God (that is, the ages since the flood). We cannot speak of the state of things before the flood as a dispensation. There was a most important trial of man in the person of Adam; but after this, what dispensation was there? What were the principles of it? No man can tell. The truth is, those are altogether mistaken who call it so. But after the flood man as such was put under certain conditions the whole race. Man became the object, first, of general dealings of God under Noah; next, of His special ways in the calling of Abraham and of his family. And what led to the call of Abraham, of whom we hear much in the epistle to the Romans as elsewhere, was the departure of man into idolatry. Man despised at first the outward testimony of God, His eternal power and Godhead, in the creation above and around him (verses 19, 20). Moreover, He gave up the knowledge of God that had been handed down from father to son (ver. 21). The downfall of man, when he thus abandoned God, was most rapid and profound; and the Holy Spirit traces this solemnly to the end ofRomans 1:1-32; Romans 1:1-32 with no needless words, in a few energetic strokes summing up that which is abundantly confirmed (but in how different a manner!) by all that remains of the ancient world. "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man," etc. (verses 22-32.) Thus corruption not only overspread morals, but became an integral part of the religion of men, and had thus a quasi-divine sanction. Hence the depravity of the heathen found little or no cheek from conscience, because it was bound up with all that took the shape of God before their mind. There was no part of heathenism practically viewed now, so corrupting as that which had to do with the objects of its worship. Thus, the true God being lost, all was lost, and man's downward career becomes the most painful and humiliating object, unless it be, indeed, that which we have to feel where men, without renewal of heart, espouse in pride of mind the truth with nothing but unrighteousness.

In the beginning ofRomans 2:1-29; Romans 2:1-29 we have man pretending to righteousness. Still, it is "man" not yet exactly the Jew, but man who had profited, it might be, by whatever the Jew had; at the least, by the workings of natural conscience. But natural conscience, although it may detect evil, never leads one into the inward possession and enjoyment of good never brings the soul to God. Accordingly, in chapter 2 the Holy Spirit shows us man satisfying himself with pronouncing on what is right and wrong moralizing for others, but nothing more. Now God must have reality in the man himself. The gospel, instead of treating this as a light matter, alone vindicates God in these eternal ways of His, in that which must be in him who stands in relationship with God. Hence therefore, the apostle, with divine wisdom, opens this to us before the blessed relief and deliverance which the gospel reveals to us. In the most solemn way he appeals to man with the demand, whether he thinks that God will look complacently on that which barely judges another, but which allows the practice of evil in the man himself (Romans 2:1-3). Such moral judgments will, no doubt, be used to leave man without excuse; they can never suit or satisfy God.

Then the apostle introduces the ground, certainty, and character of God's judgment (verses 4-16). He "will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first and also of the Gentile."

It is not here a question of how a man is to be saved, but of God's indispensable moral judgment, which the gospel, instead of weakening asserts according to the holiness and truth of God. It will be observed therefore, that in this connection the apostle shows the place both of conscience and of the law, that God in judging will take into full consideration the circumstances and condition of every soul of man. At the same time he connects, in a singularly interesting manner, this disclosure of the principles of the eternal judgment of God with what he calls "my gospel." This also is a most important truth, my brethren, to bear in mind. The gospel at its height in no wise weakens but maintains the moral manifestation of what God is. The legal institutions were associated with temporal judgment. The gospel, as now revealed in the New Testament, has linked with it, though not contained in it, the revelation of divine wrath from heaven, and this, you will observe, according to Paul's gospel. It is evident, therefore, that dispensational position will not suffice for God, who holds to His own unchangeable estimate of good and evil, and who judges the more stringently according to the measure of advantage possessed.

But thus the way is now clear for bringing the Jew into the discussion. "But if [for so it should be read] thou art named a Jew," etc. (ver. 17.) It was not merely, that he had better light. He had this, of course, in a revelation that was from God; he had law; he had prophets; he had divine institutions. It was not merely better light in the conscience, which might be elsewhere, as is supposed in the early verses of our chapter; but the Jew's position was directly and unquestionably one of divine tests applied to man's estate. Alas! the Jew was none the better for this, unless there were the submission of his conscience to God. Increase of privileges can never avail without the soul's self-judgment before the mercy of God. Rather does it add to his guilt: such is man's evil state and will. Accordingly, in the end of the chapter, he shows that this is most true as applied to the moral judgment of the Jew; that uone so much dishonoured God as wicked Jews, their own Scripture attesting it; that position went for nothing in such, while the lack of it would not annul the Gentile's righteousness, which would indeed condemn the more unfaithful Israel; in short, that one must be a Jew inwardly to avail, and circumcision be of the heart, in spirit, not in letter, whose praise is of God, and not of men.

The question then is raised in the beginning ofRomans 3:1-31; Romans 3:1-31, If this be so, what is the superiority of the Jew? Where lies the value of belonging to the circumcised people of God? The apostle allows this privilege to be great, specially in having the Scriptures, but turns the argument against the boasters. We need not here enter into the details; but on the surface we see how the apostle brings all down to that which is of the deepest interest to every soul. He deals with the Jew from his own Scripture (verses 9-19). Did the Jews take the ground of exclusively having that word of God the law? Granted that it is so, at once and fully. To whom, then, did the law address itself? To those that were under it, to be sure. It pronounced on the Jew then. It was the boast of the Jews that the law spoke about them; that the Gentiles had no right to it, and were but presuming on what belonged to God's chosen people. The apostle applies this according to divine wisdom. Then your principle is your condemnation. What the law says, it speaks to those under it. What, then, is its voice? That there is none righteous, none that doeth good, none that understandeth. Of whom does it declare all this? Of the Jew by his own confession. Every mouth was stopped; the Jew by his own oracles, as the Gentile by their evident abominations, shown already. All the world was guilty before God.

Thus, having shown the Gentile in Romans 1:1-32 manifestly wrong, and hopelessly degraded to the last degree having laid bare the moral dilettantism of the philosophers, not one whit better in the sight of God, but rather the reverse having shown the Jew overwhelmed by the condemnation of the divine oracles in which he chiefly boasted, without real righteousness, and so much the more guilty for his special privileges, all now lies clear for bringing in the proper Christian message, the. gospel of God. "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets" (verses 20, 21).

Here, again, the apostle takes up what he had but announced in chapter 1 the righteousness of God. Let me call your attention again to its force. It is not the mercy of God., Many have contended that so it is, and to their own great loss, as well as to the weakening of the word of God. "Righteousness" never means mercy, not even the "righteousness of God." The meaning is not what was executed on Christ, but what is in virtue. of it. Undoubtedly divine judgment fell on Him; but this is not "the righteousness of God," as the apostle employs it in any part of his writings any more than here, though we know there could be no such thing as God's righteousness justifying the believer, if Christ had not borne the judgment of God. The expression means that righteousness which God can afford to display because of Christ's atonement. In short, it is what the words say "the righteousness of God," and this "by faith of Jesus Christ."

Hence it is wholly apart from the law, whilst witnessed to by the law and prophets; for the law with its types had looked onward to this new kind of righteousness; and the prophets had borne their testimony that it was at hand, but not then come. Now it was manifested, and not promised or predicted merely. Jesus had come and died; Jesus had been a propitiatory sacrifice; Jesus had borne the judgment of God because of the sins He bore. The righteousness of God, then, could now go forth in virtue of His blood. God was not satisfied alone. There is satisfaction; but the work of Christ goes a great deal farther. Therein God is both vindicated and glorified. By the cross God has a deeper moral glory than ever a glory that He thus acquired, if I may so say. He is, of course, the same absolutely perfect and unchangeable God of goodness; but His perfection has displayed itself in new and more glorious ways in Christ's death, in Him who humbled Himself, and was obedient even to the death of the cross.

God, therefore, having not the least hindrance to the manifestation of what He can be and is in merciful intervention on behalf of the worst of sinners, manifests it is His righteousness "by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe" (ver. 22). The former is the direction, and the latter the application. The direction is "unto all;" the application is, of course, only to "them that believe;" but it is to all them that believe. As far as persons are concerned, there is no hindrance; Jew or Gentile makes no difference, as is expressly said, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the [passing over or praeter-mission, not] remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus" (verses 23-26). There is no simple mind that can evade the plain force of this last expression. The righteousness of God means that God is just, while at the same time He justifies the believer in Christ Jesus. It is His righteousness, or, in other words, His perfect consistency with Himself, which is always involved in the notion of righteousness. He is consistent with Himself when He is justifying sinners, or, more strictly, all those who believe in Jesus. He can meet the sinner, but He justifies the believer; and in this, instead of trenching on His glory, there is a deeper revelation and maintenance of it than if there never had been sin or a sinner.

Horribly offensive as sin is to God, and inexcusable in the creature, it is sin which has given occasion to the astonishing display of divine righteousness in justifying believers. It is not a question of His mercy merely; for this weakens the truth immensely, and perverts its character wholly. The righteousness of God flows from His mercy, of course; but its character and basis is righteousness. Christ's work of redemption deserves that God should act as He does in the gospel. Observe again, it is not victory here; for that would give place to human pride. It is not a soul's overcoming its difficulties, but a sinner's submission to the righteousness of God. It is God Himself who, infinitely glorified in the Lord that expiated our sins by His one sacrifice, remits them now, not looking for our victory, nor as yet even in leading us on to victory, but by faith in Jesus and His blood. God is proved thus divinely consistent with Himself in Christ Jesus, whom He has set forth a mercy-seat through faith in His blood.

Accordingly the apostle says that boast and works are completely set aside by this principle which affirms faith, apart from deeds of law, to be the means of relationship with God (verses 27, 28). Consequently the door is as open to the Gentile as to the Jew. The ground taken by a Jew for supposing God exclusively for Israel was, that they had the law, which was the measure of what God claimed from man; and this the Gentile had not. But such thoughts altogether vanish now, because, as the Gentile was unquestionably wicked and abominable, so from the law's express denunciation the Jew was universally guilty before God. Consequently all turned, not on what man should be for God, but what God can be and is, as revealed in the gospel, to man. This maintains both the glory and the moral universality of Him who will justify the circumcision by faith, not law, and the uncircumcision through their faith, if they believe the gospel. Nor does this in the slightest degree weaken the principle of law. On the contrary, the doctrine of faith establishes law as nothing else can; and for this simple reason, that if one who is guilty hopes to be saved spite of the broken law, it must be at the expense of the law that condemns his guilt; whereas the gospel shows no sparing of sin, but the most complete condemnation of it all, as charged on Him who shed His blood in atonement. The doctrine of faith therefore, which reposes on the cross, establishes law, instead of making it void, as every other principle must (verses 27-31).

But this is not the full extent of salvation. Accordingly we do not hear of salvation as such in Romans 3:1-31. There is laid down the most essential of all truths as a groundwork of salvation; namely, expiation. There is the vindication of God in His ways with the Old Testament believers. Their sins had been passed by. He could not have remitted heretofore. This would not have been just. And the blessedness of the gospel is, that it is (not merely an exercise of mercy, but also) divinely just. It would not have been righteous in any sense to have remitted the sins, until they were actually borne by One who could and did suffer for them. But now they were; and thus God vindicated Himself perfectly as to the past. But this great work of Christ was not and could not be a mere vindication of God; and we may find it otherwise developed in various parts of Scripture, which I here mention by the way to show the point at which we are arrived. God's righteousness was now manifested as to the past sins He had not brought into judgment through His forbearance, and yet more conspicuously in the present time, when He displayed His justice in justifying the believer.

But this is not all; and the objection of the Jew gives occasion for the apostle to bring out a fuller display of what God is. Did they fall back on Abraham? "What shall we then say that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God." Did the Jew fancy that the gospel makes very light of Abraham, and of the then dealings of God? Not so, says the apostle. Abraham is the proof of the value of faith in justification before God. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. There was no law there or then; for Abraham died long before God spoke from Sinai. He believed God and His word, with special approval on God's part; and his faith was counted as righteousness (ver. 3). And this was powerfully corroborated by the testimony of another great name in Israel (David), in Psalms 32:1-11. "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye."

In the same way the apostle disposes of all pretence on the score of ordinances, especially circumcision. Not only was Abraham justified without law, but apart from that great sign of mortification of the flesh. Although circumcision began with Abraham, manifestly it had nothing to do with his righteousness, and at best was but the seal of the righteousness of faith which he had in an uncircumcised state. It could not therefore be the source or means of his righteousness. All then that believe, though uncircumcised, might claim him as father, assured that righteousness will be reckoned to them too. And he is father of circumcision in the best sense, not to Jews, but to believing Gentiles. Thus the discussion of Abraham strengthens the case in behalf of the uncircumcised who believe, to the overthrow of the greatest boast of the Jew. The appeal to their own inspired account of Abraham turned into a proof of the consistency of God's ways in justifying by faith, and hence in justifying the uncircumcised no less than the circumcision.

But there is more than this in Romans 4:1-25 He takes up a third feature of Abraham's case; that is, the connection of the promise with resurrection. Here it is not merely the negation of law and of circumcision, but we have the positive side. Law works wrath because it provokes transgression; grace makes the promise sure to all the seed, not only because faith is open to the Gentile and Jew alike, but because God is looked to as a quickener of the dead. What gives glory to God like this? Abraham believed God when, according to nature, it was impossible for him or for Sarah to have a child. The quickening power of God therefore was here set forth, of course historically in a way connected with this life and a posterity on earth, but nevertheless a very just and true sign of God's power for the believer the quickening energy of God after a still more blessed sort. And this leads us to see not only where there was an analogy with those who believe in a promised Saviour, but also to a weighty difference. And this lies in the fact that Abraham believed God before he had the son, being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able to perform. and therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. But we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. It is done. already. It is not here believing on Jesus, but on God who has proved what He is to us in raisin, from among the dead Him who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification (verses 13-25).

This brings out a most emphatic truth and special side of Christianity. Christianity is not a system of promise, but rather of promise accomplished in Christ. Hence it is essentially founded on the gift not only of a Saviour who would interpose, in the mercy of God, to bear our sins, but of One who is already revealed, and the work done and accepted, and this known in the fact that God Himself has interposed to raise Him from among the dead a bright and momentous thing to press on souls, as indeed we find the apostles insisting on it throughout the Acts. Were it merely Romans 3:1-31 there could not be full peace with God as there is. One might know a most real clinging to Jesus; but this would not set the heart at ease with God. The soul may feel the blood of Jesus to be a yet deeper want; but this alone does not give peace with God. In such a condition what has been found in Jesus is too often misused to make a kind of difference, so to speak, between the Saviour on the one hand, and God on the other ruinous always to the enjoyment of the full blessing of the gospel. Now there is no way in which God could lay a basis for peace with Himself more blessed than as He has done it. No longer does the question exist of requiring an expiation. That is the first necessity for the sinner with God. But we have had it fully in Romans 3:1-31. Now it is the positive power of God in raising up from the dead Him that was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justifying. The whole work is done.

The soul therefore now is represented for the first time as already justified and in possession of peace with God. This is a state of mind, and not the necessary or immediate fruit of Romans 3:1-31, but is based on the truth of Romans 4:1-25 as well as 3. There never can be solid peace with God without both. A soul may as truly, no doubt, be put into relationship with God be made very happy, it may be; but it is not what Scripture calls "peace with God." Therefore it is here for the first time that we find salvation spoken of in the grand results that are now brought before us in Romans 5:1-11. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There is entrance into favour, and nothing but favour. The believer is not put under law, you will observe, but under grace, which is the precise reverse of law. The soul is brought into peace with God, as it finds its standing in the grace of God, and, more than that, rejoices in hope of the glory of God. Such is the doctrine and the fact. It is not merely a call then; but as we have by our Lord Jesus Christ our access into the favour wherein we stand, so there is positive boasting in the hope of the glory of God. For it may have been noticed from chapter 3 to chapter 5, that nothing but fitness for the glory of God will do now. It is not a question of creature-standing. This passed away with man when he sinned. Now that God has revealed Himself in the gospel, it is not what will suit man on earth, but what is worthy of the presence of the glory of God. Nevertheless the apostle does not expressly mention heaven here. This was not suitable to the character of the epistle; but the glory of God he does. We all know where it is and must be for the Christian.

The consequences are thus pursued; first, the general place of the believer now, in all respects, in relation to the past, the present, and the future. His pathway follows; and he shows that the very troubles of the road become a distinct matter of boast. This was not a direct and intrinsic effect, of course, but the result of spiritual dealing for the soul. It was the Lord giving us the profit of sorrow, and ourselves bowing to the way and end of God in it, so that the result of tribulation should be rich and fruitful experience.

Then there is another and crowning part of the blessing: "And not only so, but also boasting in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation." It is not only a blessing in its own direct character, or in indirect though real effects, but the Giver Himself is our joy, and boast, and glory. The consequences spiritually are blessed to the soul; how much more is it to Teach the source from which all flows! This, accordingly, is the essential spring of worship. The fruits of it are not expanded here; but, in point of fact, to joy in God is necessarily that which makes praise and adoration to be the simple and spontaneous exercise of the heart. In heaven it will fill us perfectly; but there is no more perfect joy there, nor anything. higher, if so high, in this epistle.

At this point we enter upon a most important part of the epistle, on which we must dwell for a little. It is no longer a question of man's guilt, but of his nature. Hence the apostle does not, as in the early chapters of this epistle, take up our sins, except as proofs and symptoms of sin. Accordingly, for the first time, the Spirit of God fromRomans 5:12; Romans 5:12 traces the mature of man to the head of the race. This brings in the contrast with the other Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we have here not as One bearing our sins in His own body on the tree, but as the spring and chief of a new family. Hence, as is shown later in the chapter, Adam is a head characterized by disobedience, who brought in death, the just penalty of sin; as on the other hand we have Him of whom he was the type, Christ, the obedient man, who has brought in righteousness, and this after a singularly blessed sort and style "justification of life." Of it nothing has been heard till now. We have had justification, both by blood and also in virtue of Christ's resurrection. But "justification of life" goes farther, though involved in the latter, than the end of Romans 4:1-25; for now we learn that in the gospel there is not only a dealing with the guilt of those that are addressed in it; there is also a mighty work of God in the presenting the man in a new place before God, and in fact, too, for his faith, clearing him from all the consequences in which he finds himself as a man in the flesh here below.

It is here that you will find a great failure of Christendom as to this. Not that any part of the truth has escaped: it is the fatal brand of that "great house" that even the most elementary truth suffers the deepest injury; but as to this truth, it seems unknown altogether. I hope that brethren in Christ will bear with me if I press on them the importance of taking good heed to it that their souls are thoroughly grounded in this, the proper place of the Christian by Christ's death and resurrection. It must not be, assumed too readily. There is a disposition continually to imagine that what is frequently spoken of must be understood; but experience will soon show that this is not the case. Even those that seek a place of separation to the Lord outside that which is now hurrying on souls to destruction are, nevertheless, deeply affected by the condition of that Christendom in which we find ourselves.

Here, then, it is not a question at all of pardon or remission. First of all the apostle points out that death has come in, and that this was no consequence of law, but before it. Sin was in the world between Adam and Moses, when the law was not. This clearly takes in man, it will be observed; and this is his grand point now. The contrast of Christ with Adam takes in man universally as well as the Christian; and man in sin, alas! was true, accordingly, before the law, right through the law, and ever since the law. The apostle is therefore plainly in presence of the broadest possible grounds of comparison, though we shall find more too.

But the Jew might argue that it was an unjust thing in principle this gospel, these tidings of which the apostle was so full; for why should one man affect many, yea, all? "Not so," replies the apostle. Why should this be so strange and incredible to you? for on your own showing, according to that word to which we all bow, you must admit that one man's sin brought in universal moral ruin and death. Proud as you may be of that which distinguishes you, it is hard to make sin and death peculiar to you, nor can you connect them even with the law particularly: the race of man is in question, and not Israel alone. There is nothing that proves this so convincingly as the book of Genesis; and the apostle, by the Spirit of God, calmly but triumphantly summons the Jewish Scriptures to demonstrate that which the Jews were so strenuously denying. Their own Scriptures maintained, as nothing else could, that all the wretchedness which is now found in the world, and the condemnation which hangs over the race, is the fruit of one man, and indeed of one act.

Now, if it was righteous in God (and who will gainsay it?) to deal with the whole posterity of Adam as involved in death because of one, their common father, who could deny the consistency of one man's saving? who would defraud God of that which He delights in the blessedness of bringing in deliverance by that One man, of whom Adam was the image? Accordingly, then, he confronts the unquestionable truth, admitted by every Israelite, of the universal havoc by one man everywhere with the One man who has brought in (not pardon only, but, as we shall find) eternal life and liberty liberty now in the free gift of life, but a liberty that will never cease for the soul's enjoyment until it has embraced the very body that still groans, and this because of the Holy Ghost who dwells in it.

Here, then, it is a comparison of the two great heads Adam and Christ, and the immeasurable superiority of the second man is shown. That is, it is not merely pardon of past sins, but deliverance from sin, and in due time from all its consequences. The apostle has come now to the nature. This is the essential point. It is the thing which troubles a renewed conscientious soul above all, because of his surprise at finding the deep evil of the flesh and its mind after having proved the great grace of God in the gift of Christ. If I am thus pitied of God, if so truly and completely a justified man, if I am really an object of God's eternal favour, how can I have such a sense of continual evil? why am I still under bondage and misery from the constant evil of my nature, over which I seem to have no power whatever? Has God then no delivering power from this? The answer is found in this portion of our epistle (that is, from the middle of chapter 5).

Having shown first, then, the sources and the character of the blessing in general as far as regards deliverance, the apostle sums up the result in the end of the chapter: "That as sin hath reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life," the point being justification of life now through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is applied in the two chapters that follow. There are two things that might make insuperable difficulty: the one is the obstacle of sin in the nature to practical holiness; the other is the provocation and condemnation of the law. Now the doctrine which we saw asserted in the latter part ofRomans 5:1-21; Romans 5:1-21 is applied to both. First, as to practical holiness, it is not merely that Christ has died for my sins, but that even in the initiatory act of baptism the truth set forth there is that I am dead. It is not, as in Ephesians 2:1-22, dead in sins, which would be nothing to the purpose. This is all perfectly true true of a Jew as of a pagan true of any unrenewed man that never heard of a Saviour. But what is testified by Christian baptism is Christ's death. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized unto Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death?" Thereby is identification with His death. "Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." The man who, being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or Christian baptism, would assert any license to sin because it is in his nature, as if it were therefore an inevitable necessity, denies the real and evident meaning of his baptism. That act denoted not even the washing away of our sins by the blood of Jesus, which would not apply to the case, nor in any adequate way meet the question of nature. What baptism sets forth is more than that, and is justly found, not in Romans 3:1-31, but inRomans 6:1-23; Romans 6:1-23. There is no inconsistency in Ananias's word to the apostle Paul "wash away thy sins, calling upon the name of the Lord." There is water as well as blood, and to that, not to this, the washing here refers. But there is more, which Paul afterwards insisted on. That was said to Paul, rather than what was taught by Paul. What the apostle had given him in fulness was the great truth, however fundamental it may be, that I am entitled, and even called on in the name of the Lord Jesus, to know that I am dead to sin; not that I must die, but that I am dead that my baptism means nothing less than this, and is shorn of its most emphatic point if limited merely to Christ's dying for my sins. It is not so alone; but in His death, unto which I am baptized, I am dead to sin. And "how shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Hence, then, we find that the whole chapter is founded on this truth. "Shall we sin," says he, proceeding yet farther (ver. 15), "because we are not under the law, but under grace?" This were indeed to deny the value of His death, and of that newness of life we have in Him risen, and a return to bondage of the worst description.

In Romans 7:1-25 we have the subject of the law discussed for practice as well as in principle, and there again meet with the same weapon of tried and unfailing temper. It is no longer blood, but death Christ's death and resurrection. The figure of the relationship of husband and wife is introduced in order to make the matter plain. Death, and nothing short of it, rightly dissolves the bond. We accordingly are dead, says he, to the law; not (as no doubt almost all of us know) that the law dies, but that we are dead to the law in the death of Christ. Compare verse 6 (where the margin, not the text, is substantially correct) with verse 4. Such is the principle. The rest of the chapter (7-25) is an instructive episode, in which the impotence and the misery of the renewed mind which attempts practice under law are fully argued out, till deliverance (not pardon) is found in Christ.

Thus the latter portion of the chapter is not doctrine exactly, but the proof of the difficulties of a soul who has not realised death to the law by the body of Christ. Did this seem to treat the law that condemned as an evil thing? Not so, says the apostle; it is because of the evil of the nature, not of the law. The law never delivers; it condemns and kills us. It was meant to make sin exceeding sinful. Hence, what he is here discussing is not remission of sins, but deliverance from sin. No wonder, if souls confound the two things together, that they never know deliverance in practice. Conscious deliverance, to be solid according to God, must be in the line of His truth. In vain will you preach Romans 3:1-31, or even 4 alone, for souls to know themselves consciously and holily set free.

From verse 14 there is an advance. There we find Christian knowledge as to the matter introduced; but still it is the knowledge of one who is not in this state pronouncing on one who is. You must carefully guard against the notion of its being a question of Paul's own experience, because he says, "I had not known," "I was alive," etc. There is no good reason for such an assumption, but much against it. It might be more or less any man's lot to learn. It is not meant that Paul knew nothing of this; but that the ground of inference, and the general theory built up, are alike mistaken. We have Paul informing us that he transfers sometimes in a figure to himself that which was in no wise necessarily his own experience, and perhaps had not been so at any time. But this may be comparatively a light question. The great point is to note the true picture given us of a soul quickened, but labouring and miserable under law, not at all consciously delivered. The last verses of the chapter, however, bring in the deliverance not yet the fulness of it, but the hinge, so to speak. The discovery is made that the source of the internal misery was that the mind, though renewed, was occupied with the law as a means of dealing with, flesh. Hence the very fact of being renewed makes one sensible of a far more intense misery than ever, while there is no power until the soul looks right outside self to Him who is dead and risen, who has anticipated the difficulty, and alone gives the full answer to all wants.

Romans 8:1-39 displays this comforting truth in its fulness. From the first verse we have the application of the dead and risen Christ to the soul, till in verse 11 we see the power of the Holy Ghost, which brings the soul into this liberty now, applied by-and-by to the body, when there will be the complete deliverance. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." A wondrous way, but most blessed! And there (for such was the point) it was the complete condemnation of this evil thing, the nature in its present state, so as, nevertheless, to set the believer as before God's judgment free from itself as well as its consequences. This God has wrought in Christ. It is not in any degree settled as to itself by His blood. The shedding of His blood was absolutely necessary: without that precious expiation all else had been vain and impossible. But there is much more in Christ than that to which too many souls restrict themselves, not less to their own loss than to His dishonour. God has condemned the flesh. And here it may be repeated that it is no question of pardoning the sinner, but of condemning the fallen nature; and this so as to give the soul both power and a righteous immunity from all internal anguish about it. For the truth is that God has in Christ condemned sin, and this for sin definitely; so that He has nothing more to do in condemnation of that root of evil. What a title, then, God gives me now in beholding Christ, no longer dead but risen, to have it settled before my soul that I am in Him as He now is, where all questions are closed in peace and joy! For what remains unsolved by and in Christ? Once it was far otherwise. Before the cross there hung out the gravest question that ever was raised, and it needed settlement in this world; but in Christ sin is for ever abolished for the believer; and this not only in respect of what He has done, but in what He is. Till the cross, well might a converted soul be found groaning in misery at each fresh discovery of evil in himself. But now to faith all this is gone not lightly, but truly in the sight of God; so that he may live on a Saviour that is risen from the dead as his new life.

Accordingly Romans 8:1-39 pursues in the most practical manner the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. First of all, the groundwork of it is laid in the first four verses, the last of them leading into every-day walk. And it is well for those ignorant of it to know that here, in verse 4, the apostle speaks first of "walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." The latter clause in the first verse of the authorised version mars the sense. In the fourth verse this could not be absent; in the first verse it ought not to be present. Thus the deliverance is not merely for the joy of the soul, but also for strength in our walking after the Spirit, who has given and found a nature in which He delights, communicating withal His own delight in Christ, and making obedience to be the joyful service of the believer. The believer, therefore, unwittingly though really, dishonours the Saviour, if he be content to walk short of this standard and power; he is entitled and called to walk according to his place, and in the confidence of his deliverance in Christ Jesus before God.

Then the domains of flesh and Spirit are brought before us: the one characterized by sin and death practically now; the other by life, righteousness, and peace, which is, as we saw, to be crowned finally by the resurrection of these bodies of ours. The Holy Ghost, who now gives the soul its consciousness of deliverance from its place in Christ, is also the witness that the body too, the mortal body, shall be delivered in its time. "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by [or because of] his Spirit that dwelleth in you."

Next, he enters upon another branch of the truth the Spirit not as a condition contrasted with flesh (these two, as we know, being always contrasted in Scripture), but as a power, a divine person that dwells in and bears His witness to the believer. His witness to our spirit is this, that we are children of God. But if children, we are His heirs. This accordingly leads, as connected with the deliverance of the body, to the inheritance we are to possess. The extent is what God Himself, so to speak, possesses the universe of God, whatever will be under Christ: and what will not? As He has made all, so He is heir of all. We are heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.

Hence the action of the Spirit of God in a double point of view comes before us. As He is the spring of our joy, He is the power of sympathy in our sorrows, and the believer knows both. The faith of Christ has brought divine joy into his soul; but, in point of fact, he is traversing a world of infirmity, suffering, and grief. Wonderful to think the Spirit of God associates Himself with us in it all, deigning to give us divine feelings even in our poor and narrow hearts. This occupies the central part of the chapter, which then closes with the unfailing and faithful power of God for us in all our experiences here below. As He has given us through the blood of Jesus full remission, as we shall be saved by this life, as He has made us know even now nothing short of present conscious deliverance from every whit of evil that belongs to our very nature, as we have the Spirit the earnest of the glory to which we are destined, as we are the vessels of gracious sorrow in the midst of that from which we are not yet delivered but shall be, so now we have the certainty that, whatever betide, God is for us, and that nothing shall separate us from His love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Then, in Romans 9:1-33; Romans 10:1-21; Romans 11:1-36, the apostle handles a difficulty serious to any mind, especially to the Jew, who might readily feel that all this display of grace in Christ to the Gentile as much as to the Jew by the gospel seems to make very cheap the distinctive place of Israel as given of God. If the good news of God goes out to man, entirely blotting out the difference between a Jew and a Gentile, what becomes of His special promises to Abraham and to his seed? What about His word passed and sworn to the fathers? The apostle shows them with astonishing force at the starting-point that he was far from slighting their privileges. He lays down such a summary as no Jew ever gave since they were a nation. He brings out the peculiar glories of Israel according to the depth of the gospel as he knew and preached it; at least, of His person who is the object of faith now revealed. Far from denying or obscuring what they boasted of, he goes beyond them "Who are Israelites," says he, "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; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all God blessed for ever." Here was the very truth that every Jew, as such, denied. What blindness! Their crowning glory was precisely what they would not hear of. What glory so rich as that of the Christ Himself duly appreciated? He was God over all blessed for ever, as well as their Messiah. Him who came in humiliation, according to their prophets, they might despise; but it was vain to deny that the same prophets bore witness to His divine glory. He was Emmanuel, yea, the Jehovah, God of Israel. Thus then, if Paul gave his own sense of Jewish privileges, there was no unbelieving Jew that rose up to his estimate of them.

But now, to meet the question that was raised, they pleaded the distinguishing promises to Israel. Upon what ground? Because they were sons of Abraham. But how, argues he, could this stand, seeing that Abraham had another son, just as much his child as Isaac? What did they say to Ishmaelites as joint-heirs? They would not hear of it. No, they cry, it is in Isaac's seed that the Jew was called. Yes, but this is another principle. If in Isaac only, it is a question of the seed, not that was born, but that was called. Consequently the call of God, and not the birth simply makes the real difference. Did they venture to plead that it must be not only the same father, but the same mother? The answer is, that this will not do one whit better; for when we come down to the next generation, it is apparent that the two sons of Isaac were sons of the same mother; nay, they were twins. What could be conceived closer or more even than this? Surely if equal birth-tie could ensure community of blessing if a charter from God depended on being sprung from the same father and mother, there was no case so strong, no claim so evident, as that of Esau to take the same rights as Jacob. Why would they not allow such a pretension? Was it not sure and evident that Israel could not take the promise on the ground of mere connection after the flesh? Birthright from the same father would let in Ishmael on the one hand, as from both parents it would secure the title of Esau on the other. Clearly, then, such ground is untenable. In point of fact, as he had hinted before, their true tenure was the call of God, who was free, if He pleased, to bring in other people. It became simply a question whether, in fact, God did call Gentiles, or whether He had revealed such intentions.

But he meets their proud exclusiveness in another way. He shows that, on the responsible ground of being His nation, they were wholly ruined. If the first book in the Bible showed that it was only the call of God that made Israel what they were, its second book as clearly proved that all was over with the called people, had it not been for the mercy of God. They set up the golden calf, and thus cast off the true God, their God, even in the desert. Did the call of God. then, go out to Gentiles? Has He mercy only for guilty Israel? Is there no call, no mercy, of God for any besides?

Hereupon he enters upon the direct proofs, and first cites Hosea as a witness. That early prophet tells Israel, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. Jezreel, Lo-ruhamah, and Lo-ammi were of awful import for Israel; but, in presence of circumstances so disastrous, there should be not merely a people but sons of the living God, and then should Judah and Israel be gathered as one people under one head. The application of this was more evident to the Gentile than to the Jew. Compare Peter's use in1 Peter 2:10; 1 Peter 2:10. Finally he brings in Isaiah, showing that, far from retaining their blessing as an unbroken people, a remnant alone would be saved. Thus one could not fail to see these two weighty inferences: the bringing in to be God's sons of those that had not been His people, and the judgment and destruction of the great mass of His undoubted people. Of these only a remnant would be saved. On both sides therefore the apostle is meeting the grand points he had at heart to demonstrate from their own Scriptures.

For all this, as he presses further, there was the weightiest reason possible. God is gracious, but holy; He is faithful, but righteous. The apostle refers to Isaiah to show that God would "lay in Zion a stumbling-stone." It is in Zion that He lays it. It is not among the Gentiles, but in the honoured centre of the polity of Israel. There would be found a stumblingstone there. What was to be the stumbling-stone? Of course, it could hardly be the law: that was the boast of Israel. What was it? There could be but one satisfactory answer. The stumbling-stone was their despised and rejected Messiah. This was the key to their difficulties this alone, and fully explains their coming ruin as well as God's solemn warnings.

In the next chapter (Romans 10:1-21) he carries on the subject, showing in the most touching manner his affection for the people. He at the same time unfolds the essential difference between the righteousness of faith and that of law. He takes their own books, and proves from one of them (Deuteronomy) that in the ruin of Israel the resource is not going into the depths, nor going up to heaven. Christ indeed did both; and so the word was nigh them, in their mouth and in their heart. It is not doing, but believing; therefore it is what is proclaimed to them, and what they receive and believe. Along with this he gathers testimonies from more than one prophet. He quotes from Joel, that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. He quotes also from Isaiah "Whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed." And mark the force of it whosoever." The believer, whosoever he might be, should not be ashamed. Was it possible to limit this to Israel? But more than this "Whosoever shall call." There. is the double prophecy. Whosoever believed should not be ashamed; whosoever called should be saved. In both parts, as it may be observed, the door is opened to the Gentile.

But then again he intimates that the nature of the gospel is involved in the publishing of the glad tidings. It is not God having an earthly centre, and the peoples doming up to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. It is the going forth of His richest blessing. And where? How far? To the limits of the holy land? Far beyond. Psalms 19:1-14 is used in the most beautiful manner to insinuate that the limits are the world. Just as the sun in the heavens is not for one people or land alone, no more is the gospel. There is no language where their voice is not heard. "Yea verily, their sound went forth into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." The gospel goes forth universally. Jewish pretensions were therefore disposed of; not here by new and fuller revelations, but by this divinely skilful employment of their own Old Testament Scriptures.

Finally he comes to two other witnesses; as from the Psalms, so now from the law and the prophets. The first is Moses himself. Moses saith, "I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people," etc. How could the Jews say that this meant themselves? On the contrary, it was the Jew provoked by the Gentiles "By them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you." Did they deny that they were a foolish nation? Be it so then; it was a foolish nation by which Moses declared they should be angered. But this does not content the apostle, or rather the Spirit of God; for he goes on to point out that Isaiah "is very bold" in a similar way; that is, there is no concealing the truth of the matter. Isaiah says: "I was found of them who sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me." The Jews were the last in the world to take such ground as this. It was undeniable that the Gentiles did not seek the Lord, nor ask after Him; and the prophet says that Jehovah was found of them that sought Him not, and was made manifest to them that asked not after Him. Nor is there only the manifest call of the Gentiles in this, but with no less clearness there is the rejection, at any rate for a time, of proud Israel. "But unto Israel he saith, All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people."

Thus the proof was complete. The Gentiles the despised heathen were to be brought in; the self-satisfied Jews are left behind, justly and beyond question, if they believed the law and the prophets.

But did this satisfy the apostle? It was undoubtedly enough for present purposes. The past history of Israel was sketched inRomans 9:1-33; Romans 9:1-33; the present more immediately is before us inRomans 10:1-21; Romans 10:1-21. The future must be brought in by the grace of God; and this he accordingly gives us at the close of Romans 11:1-36. First, he raises the question, "Has God cast away his people?" Let it not be! Was he not himself, says Paul, a proof to the contrary? Then he enlarges, and points out that there is a remnant of grace in the worst of times. If God had absolutely cast away His people, would there be such mercy? There would be no remnant if justice took its course. The remnant proves, then, that even under judgment the rejection of Israel is not complete, but rather a pledge of future favour. This is the first ground.

The second plea is not that the rejection of Israel is only partial, however extensive, but that it is also temporary, and not definitive. This is to fall back on a principle he had already used. God was rather provoking Israel to jealousy by the call of the Gentiles. But if it were so, He had not done with them. Thus the first argument shows that the rejection was not total; the second, that it was but for a season.

But there is a third. Following up with the teaching of the olive-tree, he carries out the same thought of a remnant that abides on their own stock, and points to a re-instatement of the nation, And I would just observe by the way, that the Gentile cry that no Jew ever accepts the gospel in truth is a falsehood. Israel is indeed the only people of whom there is always a portion that believe. Time was when none of the English, nor French, nor of any other nation believed in the Saviour. There never was an hour since Israel's existence as a nation that God has not had His remnant of them. Such has been their singular fruit of promise; such even in the midst of all their misery it is at present. And as that little remnant is ever sustained by the grace of God, it is the standing pledge of their final blessedness through His mercy, whereon the apostle breaks out into raptures of thanksgiving to God. The day hastens when the Redeemer shall come to Zion. He shall come, says one Testament, out of Zion. He shall come to Zion, says the other. In both Old and New it is the same substantial testimony. Thither He shall come, and thence, go forth. He shall own that once glorious seat of royalty in Israel. Zion shall yet behold her mighty, divine, but once despised Deliverer; and when He thus comes, there will be a deliverance suited to His glory. All Israel shall be saved. God, therefore, had not cast off His people, but was employing the interval of their slip from their place, in consequence of their rejection of Christ, to call the Gentiles in sovereign mercy, after which Israel as a whole should be saved. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? or who hath first liven to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever."

The rest of the epistle takes up the practical consequences of the great doctrine of God's righteousness, which had been now shown to be supported by, and in no wise inconsistent with, His promises to Israel. The whole history of Israel, past, present, and future falls in with, although quite distinct from, that which he had been expounding. Here I shall be very brief.

Romans 12:1-21 looks at the mutual duties of the saints. Romans 13:1-14; Romans 13:1-14 urges their duties towards what was outside them, more particularly to the powers that be, but also to men in general. Love is the great debt that we owe, which never can be paid, but which we should always be paying. The chapter closes with the day of the Lord in its practical force on the Christian walk. In Romans 14:1-23 and the beginning ofRomans 15:1-33; Romans 15:1-33 we have the delicate theme of Christian forbearance in its limits and largeness. The weak are not to judge the strong, and the strong are not to despise the weak. These things are matters of conscience, and depend much for their solution on the degree to which souls have attained. The subject terminates with the grand truth which must never be obscured by details that we are to receive, one another, as Christ has received us, to the glory of God. In the rest of chapter 15 the apostle dwells on the extent of his apostleship, renews his expression of the thought and hope of visiting Rome, and at the same time shows how well he remembered the need of the poor at Jerusalem. Romans 16:1-27; Romans 16:1-27 brings before us in the most. instructive and interesting manner the links that grace practically forms and maintains between the saints of God. Though he had never visited Rome, many of them were known personally. It is exquisite the delicate love with which he singles out distinctive features in each of the saints, men and women, that come before him. Would that the Lord would give us hearts to remember, as well as eyes to see, according to His own grace! Then follows a warning against those who bring in stumbling-blocks and offences. There is evil at work, and grace does not close the eye to danger; at the same time it is never under the pressure of the enemy, and there is the fullest confidence that the God of peace will break the power of Satan under the feet of the saints shortly.

Last of all, the apostle links up this fundamental treatise of divine righteousness in its doctrine, its dispensational bearings, and its exhortations to the walk of Christians, with higher truth, which it would not have been suitable then to bring out; for grace considers the state and the need of the saints. True ministry gives out not merely truth, but suited truth to the saints. At the same time the apostle does allude to that mystery which was not yet divulged at least, in this epistle; but he points from the foundations of eternal truth to those heavenly heights that were reserved for other communications in due time.