whenever, in the fulness of time, he should personally appear amongst them, they had only been abused to the increase of their pride, and at last forfeited by the rejection and crucifixion of their King. And it was impossible for Paul to think of the spiritual glory to which he himself had attained, as a subject of the Messiah's kingdom, and to which all his countrymen might also have attained, had they not put away from them, by unbelief and rebellion, the proffered blessings, without being profoundly afflicted by the contemplation of wasted opportunities and despised mercies.

These men, for whom I would dare to sacrifice myself, are not only my kinsmen (such is the force of the apostle's words), and therefore dear to me by earthly relationship. They are Israelites." They bear that glorious name, which God himself bestowed, centuries since, upon one of the great ancestors of our race, when he strove with God and prevailed. The adoption is theirs. Chosen out of the nations to be a peculiar people for Jehovah, they were exalted above all the

n See Gen. xxxii. 28.

Israel, the divinely bestowed name of the patriarch Jacob, is often explained to mean A Prince with God: but it is, perhaps, more correct to interpret it, as Winer does in his Hebrew Lexicon, A striver with God. Israelite was a title of which every Jew was exceedingly proud. See 2 Cor. xi. 22; and Phil. iii. 5.

At the present day, especially in the East, the modern Jews are fond of being named Israeli in preference to Yahudi, as more honorable.

• 'Ye are the children of the Lord your God.' Deut. xiv. 1. See also xxxii. 5, 19.

'Is not he thy father, that hath bought thee?' Deut. xxxii. 6.

The apostle, in his epistle to the Galatians (iv. 1-7) contrasts very strikingly Jewish adoption with Christian adoption.

"Now I say, that the heir as long as he is a child (výπoc), differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all: but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children (výπio), were in bondage under the elements of the world. But, when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (violɛciav). And

heathen to the high position of the adopted children of him who condescended to call himself the Father of

their nation. The glory is theirs. God's presence was marvellously manifested among them by visible splendour. The covenants are theirs. Wonderful as it may appear that the most High God should enter into covenant with creatures of the dust, he deigned, as man with his fellow, from generation to generation, to make and renew covenants with his chosen nation,--covenants of blessing on his part and obedience on theirs. The giving of the law is theirs. They were distinguished above all men by the divine gift of those statutes and

because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

See also viii. 14-17 of this epistle. P Some commentators, amongst whom is Chrysostom, connect the glory with the adoption, and understand the words ǹ violecia κai doğa to mean the glorious adoption. Others, with whom Tholuck agrees, though they do not connect the two words with each other, suppose the glory to signify, in general, the many noble distinctions of the Jewish people. I much prefer, with Beza, Turretin, and many others, to consider it as having reference to one of the special distinctions of Israel, the bright Shechinah, which, as its name denotes, was the symbol of Jehovah's dwelling in the midst of his nation, and which was peculiarly manifested, first in the tabernacle, and afterwards in the temple. See Exod. xi. 34, 35; and 2 Chron. v.14.

a Paul here writes, in the plural number, of covenants (dia0ñкaι) because the Jewish national covenant, originally made with Abraham, as

the ancestor of the future nation, was not only confirmed successively with Isaac and with Jacob, but was repeatedly ratified during the whole period of Jewish history, till at last, after decaying and waxing old, it finally vanished away in the comprehensiveness of Christianity. See Gen. xv. 9-21; xvii. 19; xxvi. 24; xlvi. 1-4; Exod. xxiv. 4—8 ; Deut. xxix. 1, where two covenants are specially noticed; Josh. viii. 30— 35; 2 Chron. vii. 12-22; 2 Kings, xxiii. 1-3; Neh. x. 29; Heb. viii. 13.

See also Eph. ii. 12, where the apostle speaks of the Gentiles having, before the times of Christianity, been strangers from the covenants of promise.'

6

See ii. 17-20 of this epistle. 'It was no common honour (says Calvin) conferred on the Jewish people to have the Supreme Being for their lawgiver. For, if other nations could boast of their Solons and their Lycurguses, how much better founded subject and matter for glorying had the Israelites, in claiming Jehovah as their Legislator!'

judgments which God graciously bestowed upon them that they might live in them. The rites of services are theirs: for not only did God reveal to them his commandments, but he also taught them, in a manner in which he never taught the other nations, how to approach him in the various services of divine worship; giving them a temple, and priests, and sacrifices, and sabbaths, and whatever else of pious rite and ceremony might help them to remember and adore their God. The promisest are theirs: for not only did God engage constantly to bless them with all temporal prosperity and happiness as long as they continued steadfast in his commandments; but he also commissioned his prophets to announce to them from age to age, and with increasing clearness as the time drew nigh, the advent of a promised Saviour. Theirs also are the fathers." They have the high honour of being descended from those holy patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whom God appointed to be the ancestors of the elect nation, and with whom he originally made his cove

to the advent of the Messiah. Here the word seems to refer to them specially. See xv. 8 of this epistle; Gal. iii. 16, 21; and Heb. xi. 13, 17.

u The Jews were accustomed to style all the illustrious men of the Old Testament Fathers: but it is most probable that the apostle is here speaking especially of the three great patriarchs of the Jewish nation, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to whom the promises were made. In Exod. iii. 15, God is represented as condescending to call himself, The Lord God of the fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

nants of mercy and promise. And, lastly, the very highest mark of earthly distinction is theirs: for it was of their race that Christ himself was born, in all that

pertained to his human nature. Yes: the coming of Christ in the flesh is theirs. He, who now reigns in heaven, appeared on earth as the son of Abraham and the son of David. It is the Jewish child who came in all the weakness of his humanity to his own at Bethlehem, who now, no longer known after the flesh, but as God over all, for ever blessed, rules the world from his eternal throne in all the power of his Divinity." Amen.

▾ See 2 Cor. v. 16.

:

In the explanation of this famous doxology, interpreters have differed down to the most recent time some referring it to the Father, while others understand it of Christ. I agree entirely with the latter, and believe that the apostle's intention is to place the human nature of the Messiah in the strongest possible contrast with his divine nature. He has already drawn a similar contrast at the commencement of this epistle. See i. 3, 4. It does not appear to me that the words 'O vini návrov θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας (who is God over all blessed for ever) can be fairly made, whether by difference of punctuation or otherwise, to mean anything else but an assertion of Christ's divinity. "There is something (says Stuart) very incongruous in a doxology here to God the Father; as even Crellius himself has observed. The apostle is expressing the deepest and most unfeigned regret of his soul, that, notwithstanding the exalted and peculiar privileges of the Jewish nation, they had by their unbelief forfeited them all, and made themselves obnoxious to a most terrible

condemnation. To break out into a doxology here would be (as Flatt suggests) like saying: "These special privileges have, by being abused, contributed greatly to enhance the guilt and punishment of the Jewish nation; God be thanked that he has given them such privileges !' Surely, doxologies are not appropriate to paragraphs, which give an account of mercies abused and deep guilt contracted. And, besides all this, the abruptness of a doxology here, which could contain no reference to God the Father, as mentioned in the preceding context (for he is not there mentioned), is plain and striking, and also, as Koppe and others have observed, without example.'

It may be observed, that a belief in the divine nature of the Messiah may be found clearly stated in the writings of Jewish theologians. Tholuck quotes a passage from the book Jezirah, in which the writer speaks of the Messiah in the following remarkable words, 'The second intelligence is that which enlightens. It is the crown of creation, the brightness entirely equal to the unity, and is exalted above all heads.'

But it is not as if the word of God had been rendered void: for they are not all Israel, who are of Israel; 7nor, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, they who are the children of the flesh, are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. 9 For this was the word of promise, According to this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.

10 And not only so, but Rebecca also, having conceived by one, even by our father Isaac: 11for, the children not having yet been born and not having done any good or evil, in order that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls, 12 it was said to her, The elder shall serve the younger; 13 as it has been written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

The apostle, in the earlier portion of his letter, had shown the utter groundlessness of the prevailing Jewish notion that the mere possession of privileges, apart from their use, would suffice to obtain blessings from God. In the strongest terms he had declared, with especial reference to two of the most valued of Jewish privileges, the right of circumcision and the gift of the law, that, however gracious the intention of God might be in bestowing them, their only real profit, to those circumcised and law-enlightened persons who possessed them, would arise from their being actually used in the production of a more loving obedience to Jehovah. What he now proceeds to say is intended to combat that same deeply-rooted Jewish opinion. The full catalogue of those neglected advantages, which he had just enumerated for the purpose of explaining and

* See ii. of this epistle.