THE EPISTLE OF PAUL ΤΟ THE ROMANS. CHAPTER IX. 1I SAY the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh who are Israelites; to whom pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the rites of service, and the promises; 5 whose are the fathers; and of whom, with respect to the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for ever: amen. : THE apostle has now brought to a close what may b properly be called the doctrinal a portion of his epistle. He has fully and clearly set forth the true meaning of that great message of salvation, which God, 'who wishes all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth,' had graciously sent, by his Son, Jesus Christ, to the whole world of Jews and Gentiles. And not only has he so explained the message, as to make it stand out before the eye of the Roman Christians in all its distinctive peculiarity, but he a The section of the epistle, which comprises the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, has been VOL. II. termed, not improperly, by some commentators, its historical corollary. b 1 Tim. ii. 4. B has also drawn a most striking portraiture of the manner of its development in the hearts of those who, by faithfully and cordially accepting it, realize in their own experience its blessed and holy consequences. Here, then, having finished his exposition of what, at the commencement of his letter, he had announced as its grand subject, he might, with all propriety, have proceeded to conclude it by those Christian exhortations and admonitions which we shall find afterwards at its close. с But the warm feelings of his affectionate heart will not allow him thus to proceed. His earnest zeal for God's glory, and his fixed resolve to proclaim, in all its integrity and comprehensiveness, that gospel, by which God's glory was to be pre-eminently manifested, in spite of every Jewish prejudice and resistance, had not in the least diminished his love for his brethren according to the flesh, ranged though they were, with the exception of an insignificant minority of them, in the fiercest and most determined opposition to that Master, See i. 16, 17. The gospel of Christ,' he had there said, 'is the power of God to salvation to every one who believes; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek: for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith; as it has been written, The just shall live by faith."" See vol. i. pp. 13-17 of the Commentary. d Many commentators suppose that the ardent language of affection for his Jewish countrymen, which the apostle uses in this part of his epistle, is to be attributed not so much to the warmth of his natural feelings, as to a politic desire to counteract the dislike which he was conscious that the Jews entertained for him as the great friend and apostle of the Gentiles. But it is far more correct, because more in accordance with Paul's known character, to consider the expressions in question, however politic in themselves, as the overflowings of a Christian heart, in which the natural feelings of patriotism had been increased in intensity, though at the same time exalted and refined, by the reception into it of the gospel of Christ. to whose cause he had devoted all the energies of his life. And therefore it was impossible for him to contemplate the vast multitude of those amongst whom the promised Messiah had appeared in the flesh, and to whom, notwithstanding all their guilt in his crucifixion, the full blessings of the gospel had been first offered, and not be filled with the liveliest sorrow and regret that they had despised and rejected the great Deliverer. It was, indeed, to one, who had been born a Jew, and who was profoundly acquainted with the depths of Jewish feeling, a fact of the most mournful import. But the sad truth could not be denied. The Christ had come to his own, and his own had received him not. The great salvation, which, for so many ages, had been the constant theme of Jewish prophecy, had been presented to them in all its fulness, but contempt and scorn had been poured upon the gracious offer, and Calvary was witness that they would not have that Man to reign over them.g In the portion of the apostle's letter which immediately follows, we shall discover a striking union of the most true-hearted faithfulness and allegiance to the Saviour, with the deepest and most affectionate desire for the salvation of his Jewish countrymen. He will not for a moment deny or soften down the painful fact, that they are in a state of exclusion from Christ's king eYe are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant, which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up his Son dom of heaven: but he will show them that they are self-excluded by their own wilful obduracy, that in their present resistance to the gospel they are condemned by their own Scriptures, that God, as the Sovereign of the universe, has always had and exercised the indisputable right to dispense his blessings in the manner which he deems to be the best, and that all, therefore, which is necessary for their blessedness is to seek the restoration of his lost favour by a humble and believing compliance with the terms of that free salvation, which he has now graciously offered to every Jew and Gentile equally and without exception. Only let them renounce their pride; only let them be content to be saved, even as others, freely and of mere grace; and Christ is as willing as ever to receive them into his church, to welcome them as the true children of Abraham, to forgive them every sin, however heinous, and to bestow upon them every Christian blessing. h Thus, then, the apostle solemnly and earnestly expresses the feelings of his grieved heart. I am speaking the truth in Christ; I lie not; as one who is spiritually united with him, who is emphatically truth itself, and whose members therefore abhor falsehood, h It is certainly correct to say, with Tholuck, that the words v Χριστῷ, ἐν Πνεύματι Αγίῳ (in Christ, in the Holy Spirit) do not amount to forms of swearing: but at the same time we must remember that the expressions which the apostle here uses are protestations of so vehement a sort as to approach very nearly to an oath in substance, though not quite in form. 'Ostendit Paulus quidquid vel tacit vel loquitur, in Christo loqui vel agere, cujus est membrum (Faul shows that whatever he does or says is done or said in Christ, whose member he is).'-Pelag. 'Cum in Christo sim, ut verax est ille, ego quoque vere vobis dico (Since I am in Christ, as he is true, so I speak truly to you).'-J. Capell. See 1 Tim. ii. 7. |