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Click a verse to see commentary9. God's Sovereign Choice
1I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: 4who are Israelites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; 5whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. 6But it is not as though the word of God hath come to nought. For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel: 7neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8That is, it is not the children of the flesh that are children of God; but the children of the promise are reckoned for a seed. 9For this is a word of promise, According to this season will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. 10And not only so; but Rebecca also having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac-- 11for the children being not yet born, neither having done anything good or bad, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, 12it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. 13Even as it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. 14What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. 15For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. 16So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that hath mercy. 17For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, For this very purpose did I raise thee up, that I might show in thee my power, and that my name might be published abroad in all the earth. 18So then he hath mercy on whom he will, and whom he will be hardeneth. 19Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he still find fault? For who withstandeth his will? 20Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why didst thou make me thus? 21Or hath not the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? 22What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted unto destruction: 23and that he might make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he afore prepared unto glory, 24even us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25As he saith also in Hosea,
I will call that my people, which was not my people;
And her beloved, that was not beloved.
26And it shall be, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people,
There shall they be called sons of the living God.
27And Isaiah crieth concerning Israel, If the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that shall be saved: 28for the Lord will execute his word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short. 29And, as Isaiah hath said before,
Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah.
30What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who followed not after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: 31but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. 32Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works. They stumbled at the stone of stumbling; 33even as it is written,
Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence:
And he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame.
Reception of the Gentiles and Rejection of the Jews. (a. d. 58.)
30 What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith. 31 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone; 33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
The apostle comes here at last to fix the true reason of the reception of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews. There was a difference in the way of their seeking, and therefore there was that different success, though still it was the free grace of God that made them differ. He concludes like an orator, What shall we say then? What is the conclusion of the whole dispute?
I. Concerning the Gentiles observe, 1. How they had been alienated from righteousness: they followed not after it; they knew not their guilt and misery, and therefore were not at all solicitous to procure a remedy. In their conversion preventing grace was greatly magnified: God was found of those that sought him not, Isa. lxv. 1. There was nothing in them to dispose them for such a favour more than what free grace wrought in them. Thus doth God delight to dispense grace in a way of sovereignty and absolute dominion. 2. How they attained to righteousness, notwithstanding: By faith; not by being proselyted to the Jewish religion, and submitting to the ceremonial law, but by embracing Christ, and believing in Christ, and submitting to the gospel. They attained to that by the short cut of believing sincerely in Christ for which the Jews had been long in vain beating about the bush.
II. Concerning the Jews observe, 1. How they missed their end: they followed after the law of righteousness (v. 31)—they talked much of justification and holiness, seemed very ambitious of being the people of God and the favourites of heaven, but they did not attain to it, that is, the greatest part of them did not; as many as stuck to their old Jewish principles and ceremonies, and pursued a happiness in those observances, embracing the shadows now that the substance was come, these fell short of acceptance with God, were not owned as his people, nor went to their house justified. 2. How they mistook their way, which was the cause of their missing the end, v. 32, 33. They sought, but not in the right way, not in the humbling way, not in the instituted appointed way. Not by faith, not by embracing the Christian religion, and depending upon the merit of Christ, and submitting to the terms of the gospel, which were the very life and end of the law. But they sought by the works of the law; as if they were to expect justification by their observance of the precepts and ceremonies of the law of Moses. This was the stumbling-stone at which they stumbled. They could not get over this corrupt principle which they had espoused, That the law was given them for no end but that merely by their observance of it, and obedience to it, they might be justified before God: and so they could by no means be reconciled to the doctrine of Christ, which brought them off from that to expect justification through the merit and satisfaction of another. Christ himself is to some a stone of stumbling, for which he quotes Isa. viii. 14; xxviii. 16. It is sad that Christ should be set for the fall of any, and yet it is so (Luke ii. 34), that ever poison should be sucked out of the balm of Gilead, that the foundation-stone should be to any a stone of stumbling, and the rock of salvation a rock of offence; so he is to multitudes; so he was to the unbelieving Jews, who rejected him, because he put an end to the ceremonial law. But still there is a remnant that do believe on him; and they shall not be ashamed, that is, their hopes and expectations of justification by him shall not be disappointed, as theirs are who expect it by the law. So that, upon the whole, the unbelieving Jews have no reason to quarrel with God for rejecting them; they had a fair offer of righteousness, and life, and salvation, made to them upon gospel terms, which they did not like, and would not come up to; and therefore, if they perish, they may thank themselves—their blood is upon their own heads.