ROMAS 11 COMMETARYWritten and edited by Glenn Pease

The Remnant of Israel

1I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no

means! I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of

Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.

Paul is a living illustration of the fact that God did not reject the Jews as a whole,

for he and many others did accept Jesus as their Messiah, and they became a part of

the church. Many, however, did reject Jesus, and they were rejected as part of the

ew Israel, which was the people who became the new people of God by receiving

the Messiah as their Savior. Many Jews did make the transition from the old Israel

to the new Israel, and so God did not reject his people. His people largely rejected

him, but he did not reject them, but welcomed them into his new kingdom based on

what Jesus did on the cross. His work there made all that God did in the past

obsolete as a source of salvation. All other sacrifices were eliminated for the ew

Israel, and no longer would they look to the Exodus from Egypt as their great event

of salvation, for from now they would look to Calvary and what Jesus did for them

in dying for their sins.

God did not reject his people, but his people rejected him. Jesus said to the people

of Jerusalem in Luke 19:41 to 44, "As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he

wept over it 42and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would

bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. 43The days will come upon you

when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem

you in on every side. 44They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within

your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize

the time of God's coming to you."

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:14-15, "But their minds were made dull, for to this

day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been

removed,because only in Christ is it taken away. 15Even to this day when Moses is

read, a veil covers their hearts." The Jews are a people living under a shield that

blinds them to the light Christ brought into the world, and only when they pull back

the veil and look squarely into the face of Christ will they ever be restored as God's

people. Some Jews have pulled back the veil, and all through history Jews have been

doing so, and becoming a part of the ew Israel in Christ. The fact is, most Jews

have not done so, and still refuse to do so.

BARES, I say then - This expression is to be regarded as conveying the sense of an objection. Paul, in the previous chapters, had declared the doctrine that all the Jews were to be rejected. To this a Jew might naturally reply, Is it to be believed, that God would cast off his people whom he had once chosen; to whom pertained the adoption, and the promises, and the covenant, and the numerous blessings conferred on a favorite people? It was natural for a Jew to make such objections. And it was important for the apostle to show that his doctrine was consistent with all the promises which God had made to his people. The objection, as will be seen by the answer which Paul makes, is formed on the supposition that God had rejected all his people, or cast them off entirely. This objection he answers by showing,

(1) That God had saved him, a Jew, and therefore that he could not mean that God had east off all Jews Rom_11:1;

(2) That now, as in former times of great declension, God had reserved a remnant Rom_11:2-5;

(3) That it accorded with the Scriptures that a part should be hardened Rom_11:6-10;

(4) That the design of the rejection was not final, but was to admit the Gentiles to the privileges of Christianity Rom_11:11-24;

(5) That the Jews should yet return to God, and be reinstated in his favor: so that it could not be objected that God had finally and totally cast off his people, or that he had violated his promises.

At the same time, however, the doctrine which Paul had maintained was true, that God had taken away their exclusive and special privileges, and had rejected a large part of the nation.

Cast away - Rejected, or put off. Has God so renounced them that they cannot be any longer his people.

His people - Those who have been long in the covenant relation to him: that is, the Jews.

God forbid - Literally, it may not or cannot be. This is an expression strongly denying that this could take place; and means that Paul did not intend to advance such a doctrine; Luk_20:16; Rom_3:4, Rom_3:6,Rom_3:31; Rom_6:2, Rom_6:15; Rom_7:7, Rom_7:13.

For I am also an Israelite - To show them that he did not mean to affirm that all Jews must of necessity be cast off, he adduces his own case. He was a Jew; and yet he looked for the favor of God, and for eternal life. That favor he hoped now to obtain by being a Christian; and if he might obtain it, others might also. If I should say that all Jews must be excluded from the favor of God, then I also must be without hope of salvation, for I am a Jew.

Of the seed of Abraham - Descended from Abraham. The apostle mentions this to show that he was a Jew in every respect; that he had a title to all the privileges of a Jew, and must be exposed to all their liabilities and dangers. If the seed of Abraham must of necessity be cut off, he must be himself rejected. The Jews valued themselves much on having been descended from so illustrious an ancestor as Abraham Mat_3:9; and Paul

shows them that he was entitled to all the privileges of such a descent; compare Phi_3:4-5.

Of the tribe of Benjamin - This tribe was one that was originally located near Jerusalem. The temple was built on the line that divided the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. It is not improbable that it was regarded as a special honor to have belonged to one of those tribes. Paul mentions it here in accordance with their custom; for they regarded it as of great importance to preserve their genealogy, and to be able to state not only that they were Jews, but to designate the tribe and family to which they belonged.

CLARKE, I say then, hath God cast away his people? - Has he utterly and finally rejected them? for this is necessarily the apostles meaning, and is the import of the

Greek word , which signifies to thrust or drive away, from , from, and , to thrust or drive; has he thrust them off, and driven them eternally from him? God forbid - by no means. This rejection is neither universal nor final. For I also am an Israelite - I am a regular descendant from Abraham, through Israel or Jacob, and by his son Benjamin. And I stand in the Church of God, and in the peculiar covenant; for the rejection is only of the obstinate and disobedient; for those who believe on Christ, as I have done, are continued in the Church.

GILL, I say then, hath God cast away his people?.... The Alexandrian, copy adds here, "whom he foreknew", as in Rom_11:2, upon the citation of the above passages out of Moses and Isaiah, relating to the calling of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews, the apostle saw an objection would arise, which he here takes up from the mouth of an adversary, and proposes it; in which is suggested, that God has cast away all his people the Jews, according to this count; and if so, where is his covenant with Abraham? what is become of his promises? and how is his faithfulness to be accounted for? and what hope can any Israelite have of ever obtaining salvation? than which, nothing can be thought more injurious to God, and absurd in itself. This was an old prejudice of the Jewish nation, and still continues, that God never would, nor has he cast them away, even in their present condition; it is one of the articles of their creed, received by the Karaites (o), a sect among them, that

"the blessed God ,"hathnotcastawaythemenofthecaptivity",thoughthey

areunderthechastisementsofGod;butitisfitthattheyshouldeverydayobtainsalvationbythe

handsofMessiah,theSonofDavid.''

Nowtothisobjectiontheapostlemakesanswer;"first",inhisusualway,

GodforbidGodforbidGodforbidGodforbid,whenanythingwasobjectedwhichwasdispleasingtohim,abhorredbyhim,which

wasnotagreeabletotheperfectionsofGod,tothetruthofhisword,andpromises,andcouldby

nomeansbeadmittedof;andnextbyobservinghisowncase,whichwasastandinginstanceto

thecontrary;forGodhadchosenhimuntoeternalsalvation,Christhadredeemedhimbyhis

blood,andhewaseffectuallycalledbygrace;andastohiseternalstate,hehadnodoubtor

scrupleaboutit;andbesides,theLordhadmadehimaministeroftheGospel,hadgreatly

qualifiedhimforthatwork,hadraisedhimtothehighofficeofanapostle,andhadmadehim

veryusefultothesoulsofmany,bothJewsandGentiles;andyethewasoneofthenationofthe

Jews,andthereforeGodhadnotcastthemallaway,astheobjectioninsinuates:

forIalsoamanIsraeliteforIalsoamanIsraeliteforIalsoamanIsraeliteforIalsoamanIsraelite;accordingtotheflesh,bylinealdescentfromJacoborIsrael;see

2Co_11:22;aswellasinaspiritualsense:

oftheseedofAbrahamoftheseedofAbrahamoftheseedofAbrahamoftheseedofAbraham;"thegrandfatherofIsrael";theheadoftheJewishnationhewas,bothof

hisnaturalandofhisspiritualseed,whoisthefatherofusall:

ofthetribeofBenjaminofthetribeofBenjaminofthetribeofBenjaminofthetribeofBenjamin;averylittletribe,whichinthetimeoftheJudgeswasnearbeing

destroyed,and,uponthereturnfromthecaptivityofBabylon,wasverysmall,asitwasatthis

time;andyetGodhadnotcastawaythis,muchlessallthetribesofIsrael.

HERY, The apostle proposes here a plausible objection, which might be urged against the divine conduct in casting off the Jewish nation (Rom_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.

JAMISO, Rom_11:1-36. Same subject continued and concluded - The ultimate inbringing of all Israel, to be, with the Gentiles, one kingdom of God on the earth.

I say then, Hath Did

God cast away his people? God forbid Our Lord did indeed announce that the kingdom of God should be taken from Israel (Mat_21:41); and when asked by the Eleven, after His resurrection, if He would at that time restore the kingdom to Israel, His reply is a virtual admission that Israel was in some sense already out of covenant (Act_1:9). Yet here the apostle teaches that, in two respects, Israel was not cast away; First, Not totally; Second, Not finally. First, Israel is not wholly cast away.

for I also am an Israelite See Phi_3:5, and so a living witness to the contrary.

of the seed of Abraham of pure descent from the father of the faithful.

of the tribe of Benjamin (Phi_3:5), that tribe which, on the revolt of the ten tribes, constituted, with Judah, the one faithful kingdom of God (1Ki_12:21), and after the captivity was, along with Judah, the kernel of the Jewish nation (Ezr_4:1; Ezr_10:9).

CALVI, 1.I say then, etc. What he has hitherto said of the blindness and obstinacy of the Jews, might seem to import that Christ at his coming had transferred elsewhere the promises of God, and deprived the Jews of every hope of salvation. This objection is what he anticipates in this passage, and he so modifies what he had previously said respecting the repudiation of the Jews, that no one might think that the covenant formerly made with Abraham is now abrogated, or that God had so forgotten it that the Jews were now so entirely alienated from his kingdom, as the Gentiles were before the coming of Christ. All this he denies, and he will presently show that it is altogether false. But the question is not whether God had justly or unjustly rejected the people; for it was proved in the last chapter that when the people, through false zeal, had rejected the righteousness of God, they suffered a just punishment for their presumption, were deservedly blinded, and were at last cut off from the covenant.

The reason then for their rejection is not now under consideration; but the dispute is concerning another thing, which is this, That though they deserved such a punishment from God, whether yet the covenant which God made formerly with the fathers was abolished. That it should fail through any perfidiousness of men, was wholly unreasonable; for Paul holds this as a fixed principle, that since adoption is gratuitous and based on God alone and not on men, it stands firm and inviolable, howsoever great the unfaithfulness of men may be, which may tend to abolish it. It was necessary that this knot should be untied, lest the truth and election of God should be thought to be dependent on the worthiness of men.

For I am also an Israelite, etc. Before he proceeds to the subject, he proves, in passing, by his own example, how unreasonable it was to think that the nation was utterly forsaken by God; for he himself was in his origin an Israelite, not a proselyte, or one lately introduced into the commonwealth of Israel. As then he was justly deemed to be one of God special servants, it was an evidence that God favor rested on Israel. He then assumes the conclusion as proved, which yet he will hereafter explain in a satisfactory manner.

That in addition to the title of an Israelite, he called himself the seed of Abraham, and mentioned also his own tribe; this he did that he might be counted a genuine Israelite, and he did the same in his Epistle to the Philippians, Phi_3:4. But what some think, that it was done to commend God mercy, inasmuch as Paul sprung from that tribe which had been almost destroyed, seems forced and far-fetched.

COFFMAN, This extremely interesting chapter concludes Paul's burden of revelation concerning the Jews. What is called the Jewish problem dominates the entire epistle, especially in its relation to the master theme of God's rectitude; but, beginning with Romans 9, Paul began to lay the ground for the revelation of the mystery concerning Israel which was finally stated formally in Romans 11:25.The key facts which Paul had already established regarding Israel are: (1) they are not all Israel who are of Israel (Romans 9:6), making it clear that there are, and always have been, TWO Israels: (a) the external Israel, the state, the nation, the visible Jewry on earth, and (b) true Israel, called "his people," that is God's people, children of the promise, the seed of Abraham, the people whom he foreknew, etc.; (2) the external Israel God had rejected and hardened, as extensively prophesied by their own prophets, and as just punishment for their rejection of God, climaxed by their stumbling on Christ; and (3) the true Israel are now the redeemed in Christ, but such a fact excludes no one;

"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:13). These three important facts about Israel should be kept in view.

For centuries the two Israels had been almost indistinguishable, there being no sharp separation between them, but Paul showed in the beginning of this chapter that the separation had been made, with the true Israel CONTINUING as Christianity, and the "rest" (Romans 11:7) hardened, the latter being the whole of external Judaism. Paul devoted most of the remaining verses to explaining the relationship between the two Israels by the use of several comparisons, and then dramatically stated the mystery inRomans 11:25.I say then, Did God cast off his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. (Romans 11:1)

Did God cast off his people ... This question regards the true Israel, not the nation, which certainly had been cast off, there being then "no distinction" (Romans 9:12) in the sight of God between either Jews or Gentiles. Paul guarded against confusing the people here mentioned with external Israel by saying immediately that it was "the people whom he foreknew" (Romans 11:2) who were not cast off. Many make the mistake of supposing this to mean that God had not cast off the nation. Even so perceptive a writer as Hodge missed this altogether, saying,

When we consider how many promises were made to the Jewish nation (!), as God's peculiar people; and how often it is said, as inPsalms 94:14, "The Lord will not cast off his people," it is not surprising that the doctrine of the rejection of the Jews, as taught in the preceding chapters, was regarded as inconsistent with the word of God.[1]

Hodge plainly failed to distinguish between nation and people.

Paul refuted the allegation that God had cast off his people by appealing to his own conversion as proof of the validity of God's promise; which fact demonstrates what Paul meant. Paul was not saved through his membership in the Jewish nation at all, but as an individual obedient believer in Christ, such salvation also being available to all who ever lived since Christ came (Jews and Gentiles alike), and upon identical conditions. How could God be supposed to need anything any better than that or any different arrangement?

But the mania regarding the Jewish nation persists. Note what Wuest said:

The covenant of God with Israel, having been NATIONAL, shall ultimately be fulfilled to them as A NATION; not by the gathering in merely of individual Jews, or of all Jews individually, into the Christian Church, - but by the restoration of the Jews, not in unbelief, but as aCHRISTIAN BELIEVING NATION.[2]

Now Paul alleged his own redemption as the fulfillment of God's promise not to cast off his people, but Wuest and many others do not accept Paul's premise. Why? They have incorporated into their reasoning a major premise which is false, that being the opinion that God's covenant was with a nation, state, or race of people. That is not true at all. God's covenant was with the spiritual seed of Abraham, as Paul showed extensively in Romans 9, where he proved that the promise never was to the fleshly seed of Abraham, but to the people "whom he foreknew," the spiritual seed. God's covenant was never with the state, or kingdom, of Israel, nor with any of their kings, AS SUCH. Even the Davidic kingdom was not the earthly state but the spiritual kingdom, upon the throne of which, even now, Christ indeed reigns. As noted at the head of this chapter, the earthly kingdom and the spiritual "people" of the promise were historically indistinguishable for centuries, but Paul here showed the separation as finally precipitated in the first advent of our Lord.

The thought that God ever had any covenant with the ancient kingdom of Israel, in the sense of their state, through any of their kings, is repugnant. The very existence of their line of kings was contrary to God's will, existing with his permission, but not with his approval, as a glance at 1 Samuel 8:7 proves. It was precisely in the events there recorded that Israel "rejected God" from reigning over them; and the great historical rejection of God by the fleshly Israel, in their irrevocable repudiation of God as their king and the elevation of one of themselves to rule over them, was the pivot upon which all their later apostasy turned. The Solomonic empire which they so ardently desired to be restored with its earthly glory was the concept that totally blinded them to the Christ,

and which still blinds many as to what is meant by God's "people."

Think of it. If God should be thought of as owing anything at all to the fleshly descendants of Abraham, as viewed separately from the spiritual seed, why does he not owe it also to the Edomites, the Arabians, and the Ishmaelites? "Race," in the sense of fleshly descent, means absolutely nothing to God. And as to that southern portion of the divided kingdom, could there be any justice whatever in making them the recipients of any special dispensation of God's grace, in view of the bitterest denunciations of them pronounced by God through the mouths of their noblest prophets? That southern state, historically identifiable as the present Israel, and also that of Paul's day, could not possibly deserve anything at God's hands which could be viewed as favoring them over the ten northern tribes who were swallowed up in oblivion, because Ezekiel plainly declared the sins of the southern kingdom to have been "more than" those of the kingdom that disappeared (Ezekiel 23:16), even declaring that Judah's sin exceeded that of both Samaria and Sodom.

Thou wast corrupted more than they all (Samaria and Sodom) in thy ways (Ezekiel 16:47).

Now, if nothing but the flesh is considered, if Israel is to be viewed as any people identified with Abraham merely through fleshly descent, why should God have annihilated Sodom and Samaria and have spared Israel whom God himself declared to be worse than either of them? The reasons why God did spare fleshly Israel in preference over the ten tribes, until the historical fulfillment of their mission as flesh-bearers of the Messiah, and the reasons why fleshly Israel is still spared, contrary to all apparent righteousness, appears in the revelation of the great mystery of 1:25. But the fantastic notion that the true Israel now has, or ever will have, any identification with that fleshly remnant is contrary to the scriptures and to all reason.

Lard has observed that

The nation most certainly was cut off, deservedly. As a nation God cast them off; but at the same time, he has retained many individuals in his love, because of their belief in Christ.[3]

The individuals mentioned by Lard are God's "people" in the sense of this verse.

[1] Charles Hodge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), p. 353.

[2] Kenneth S. Wuest, Romans in the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1955); p. 186.

[3] Moses E. Lard, Commentary on Paul's Letter to Romans (Cincinnati, Ohio: Christian Board of Publication, 1914), p. 345.

BARCLAY 1-12, THE CALLOUS O THE HEART

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 (1Kgs.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 (Am. 9:8-10) thought of God sifting men as

corn is in a sieve until only the good are left. Micah (Mic. 2:12; Mic. 5:3) had a

vision of God gathering the remnant of Israel. Zephaniah (Zeph. 3:12-13) had the

same idea. Jeremiah foresaw the remnant being gathered from all the countries

throughout which they had been scattered (Jer. 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

(Eze. 14:14,20,22). 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 (Isa. 7:3;

Isa. 8:2; Isa. 8:18; Isa. 9:12; Isa. 6:9-13).

There is a tremendous truth beginning to dawn here. As one great scholar put it:

"o 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 (Deut. 29:4; Isa. 6:9-10; Isa. 29:10). He quotes Ps. 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 Rom. 11:7 the King James Version

says, "they have been blinded." More correctly, it should be, "they have been

hardened." The verb is poroun The noun porosis 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.

BIBLLICAL ILLUSTRATOR, God hath not cast away His people.God hath not cast off His people

This is proved by

I. The known facts of their historyPaul and his companions in the faith.

II. The secret operations of the Spirit of Godas exemplified in the case of Elias.

III. The results to be achieved in the national rejection of Israel.

1. The conversion of the Gentiles.

2. The consequent conversion of the Jews.

3. The completion of the redeeming purpose on earth.

IV. The ultimate purpose of Gods judgmentsthe demonstration of His own glory. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

The remnant, the admonition, and the hope

1. Distressed though the apostle was that anything should have caused the exclusion of his kinsmen from the benefits of Messiahs kingdom, yet the fact was patent that it was because of their unbelief, and that it had been predicted. Henceforth they should no longer be, as a people, the people of God. Even when admitted into the kingdom of God, which they still might be by the obedience of faith, they should have no pre-eminence over their believing Gentile brethren (Joh_10:16).

2. Now all this might well fill the heart of the patriotic Jew with thoughtful sadness. For he had been accustomed to give to the glowing predictions of Israels prospective glory an altogether national and literal interpretation. How sadly disappointing, then, to be now assured that the Israel there spoken of was, not Israel after the flesh, but after the spirit! He would ask, How am I to understand the matter? Hath God cast away His people? God forbid! exclaims the apostle. As a nation, and because that they have rejected the Lords Christ, He has rejected them, but this only so far, and so long, as they reject Him. Therefore

I. He has not cast them away indiscriminately; they have not all been rejected; there is still a foreknown remnant.

1. Such a total rejection the apostle had never affirmed. Should any one assert that so he had taught, let him reflect that he also was an Israelite, etc. But he was not therefore excluded from the benefit of Christs salvation. No; not even though he had once been a blasphemer, etc. (1Ti_1:16).

2. Nor had the apostle alone from amongst the Jews obtained mercy (Act_21:20). Nor could he have anything like an adequate conception of the number of Jewish believers. These whom God had foreknown He had by no means cast away. Though perhaps unknown of men, they were known of God (Rev_7:1-8). Such secret ones the Lord has always had (Rom_11:2-5; cf. 1Ki_19:9-18; Isa_1:9; Isa 10:22).

3. This remnant had obtained that salvation (Rom_9:27), which the rest refused to accept on the stipulated terms; while that rest, because of their self-righteous and obstinate unbelief, had been judicially blinded and hardened (Deu_29:4; Psa_69:22-23). Thus it is that God always deals with incorrigible sinners. They persist in loving darkness, and hating light, and He blinds them. They reject the sure foundation, and it becomes a stone of stumbling. Thus He dealt with Pharaoh and his hosts, with the unbelieving Israelites in the times of Moses, David, Solomon, and Isaiah. And thus He deals with them still (Act_13:40-41; Hab_1:5). These unbelieving Jews are the cast away; but the believing Jews (a foreknown remnant) are elected and saved. But now

II. With respect to those who have been cast away; have they stumbled to a hopeless fall? Had God ordained that it should be so? God forbid! is the vigorous reply.

1. God did not purpose less mercy for them, but He did intend more for the Gentiles. Indeed, it was this very opening the door of faith to the Gentiles that chiefly caused the offence of the Jews. But by this, which occasioned their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.

2. And now the apostle turns to the Gentile Christians to admonish them against a spirit of exultation over the fallen and rejected Jews. The admonition was probably needed, the persecuting spirit of the Jews being calculated to provoke retaliation. It was still more needed in after times, when Christian rulers and Churches then acted towards that scattered people as though they had been deprived of all the rights of common humanity. But the God of Israel had given no right to any to add one stripe to their chastisement. His severity was intended not for destruction, but salvation; and how much more desirable the latter than the former result! (verses 12-15).

3. And that their salvation is even yet possible is further evident (verse 16). The firstling of the dough and the root of the treefigures to designate the great progenitors of the whole Jewish nationhaving believed in God, had obtained salvation, and had become holy to the Lord. Nay, Jehovah had so presented them to Himself that their descendants also were to be accounted a holy nation. True, this did not insure their unconditional salvation. It had not prevented great numbers from forsaking the God of Israel (Isa_1:4); but for their fathers sakes He would spare no pains to renew them again unto repentance, and to give them hearty welcome on their return (Isa_54:6-8). Many individual Jews had already believed and been saved. These, therefore, might be regarded as, in a secondary sense, the first-fruits unto God, and served to prove that, on like terms, all Israel might be saved.

4. Nay, further, the apostle maintains that the Jews occupied a position more favourable to their salvation. If the Church be symbolised by the olive-tree the Jews were the natural branches as related to Abraham, the father of the faithful, and, as by solemn covenant, separated to fire service of Jehovah. Compared with them, the heathen are indeed but branches of the wild and uncultured tree (Eph_2:11-12). And be it that some of the branches were broken off, and that many from the wild olive have been grafted into the true olive, let them remember that this has been effected contrary to nature, and therefore not exult over the off-broken branches: forasmuch as the state of neither the off-broken nor engrafted branches is irreversible. If the believing Gentile suffers the spirit of pride to displace that of humble trust in the Saviour, he, too, shall not be spared. And if the now reprobated Jew shall receive Him, then shall he also be re-engrafted into the ancient stock. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God (verses 22-24).

5. And not only so, but however improbable it might seem, the time would arrive when all Israel should acknowledge Christ as Lord, and be thereupon welcomed back into His fold (verses 25-27). In the meantime, and as far as concerns the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. And that which has brought them into this position is the free grace of God, which resolved to include you also. But as touching the election the believing remnant, which continues from age to age (verses 5, 6), are beloved for the fathers sakes. For God Himself has given a sure word of promise that, whithersoever they may be dispersed, when they shall make confession of their iniquity, then will He remember His covenant (Lev_26:40-45). For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. All alike are by nature unbelieving and disobedient. To the consciousness of this fact it is that God shuts them up, and that in order that they may be induced to seek and to secure salvation. (W. Tyson.)

The rejection of Israel

I. Not absolute.

1. A remnant saved.

2. Exemplified in Paul and many known Jewish converts.

3. Confirmed by the history of Elijah.

4. This remnant is of grace (verse 6).

II. Not arbitrary.

1. The rest were blinded.

2. Because of their disobedience.

3. By the just visitation of God.

4. As announced beforehand by their own prophets. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Gods people

I. Cannot fail on earth.

1. Individuals are still converted (verse 1).

2. The purpose of God is unchangeable (verse 2).

II. Is still small.

1. But not so small that we should be discouraged.

2. Great enough to occasion joy and gratitude.

III. Consists of all true believers who

1. Repudiate all human merit.

2. Receive Gods mercy as a free gift.

3. Do not harden themselves against the truth. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Gods Church wider than mans

I. The conspicuously good are the fewnot the many. The many are the called; the few are the chosen who accept the call. God had not wholly cast away His people (verse 1). It was then as it had been in the time of Elijah (verse 4). And how is it now? Let us beware of uncharitable judgments. Nothing is easier than sweeping censures. God is tender in His judgments of men, often justifying many whom we in our severity should condemn. Still, would Christ acknowledge the majority in the churches, or would He have to turn to the minority? Certainly to only a small minority, whose faith is proved by their character and works. For, strip away from the profession of Christianity its accidental accompaniments, and what do you find? Nothing that is perfect, even in the loftiest; and nothing of unmixed evil in the meanest. But you will find in the few, in spite of great faults, a faith in Christ so genuine as to give a sure pledge that the goodness of the man will assuredly conquer the badness in the end. The man in whom the love of truth is a passion, in whom justice is a matter of greater concern than the falling of the heavens, and who burns with shame at the thought of an impure deed, and who has courage enough to suffer in the righteous cause like his Great Master;why, that man forms part of Gods elect remnant, who put to shame the majority of those who cry aloud the name of Christ, but who do not His deeds.

II. Some of these few are not found within the boundaries of the recognised Church. They are in Christs Church, but not in mans. And that is a cause of jealousy and anger to many of us. When Paul told the Jews that God was founding a Church outside their own nation, he knew that he was wounding their prejudices to the quick. So strongly did he feel this that he had to fortify himself by an appeal to Moses (Rom_10:19). But though fact and prophecy supported his statement, they would not admit that God was working upon lines outside their own. And yet the apostle insists upon it as the great revealed mystery which was to crush their pride and to precipitate their fall (verse 25). And so now God is wider in His plans than our pride and prejudice think. We find it almost as hard to believe as the Jew did, that God has a Church outside the Church. And yet, are we not confronted by facts? I believe the Church is our right and natural place, and that it is its natural work to be foremost in doing whatever contributes to the highest welfare of men. But has it not been, and is it not so still, that God has other sheep which are not of this fold? Some of these have maintained an outward connection with the Church, though the Church has not identified itself with them. They have worked alongside the Church rather than with it. Wilberforce and Clarkson did not get the sympathy and support of the Church till their cause was triumphant. Who are the true prophets of this generation? For the most part men upon whom the Church looks askance. When we get to heaven we shall find men there whom we never expected to see, and miss others perhaps whom we expected to find in the foremost places.

III. This outer Church of the Gentiles was to provoke the Jews to jealousy and emulation. The Jews fell that the Gentiles might rise, and the Gentiles had risen that they might stimulate the Jews to rise too. The Church is evermore in need of this constant renewal and reconstruction. At the time of the Reformation Christian truth had to be rediscovered, and a new Church formed outside the lines of the old Church. But the fundamental principle of the Reformation did not long preserve its supremacythe right of every man to exercise his own judgmentfor the Protestants soon began to persecute men like the Catholics. There is a great cry in our day that religion is in danger, and that the churches are failing; such a cry as must have gone forth among the Jews when Paul first preached, but has the cry any greater warrant now than it had then? Was not religion then really rooting itself in a richer soil, and preparing to bring forth better fruit? The devout Catholic thought that the Reformers were devils, and prophesied the

overthrow of all religion. But was it not rather a fresh ploughing and sowing of the human soul, and a new opening of the heavens? And as to the cry in our day, if the Christianity depended on the Roman Syllabus, the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Westminster Confession, then we might tremble, but God forbid that we should be overcome by such an ignoble fear. We believe in the religion of Christ, and we can see before it a nobler future. As the Jews had to learn from the Gentiles in order to their recovery, so we have some things to learn from the outer boundaries of Gods Church. (C. Short, M.A.)

God hath not cast away His people.

The glory which will redound to God from the conversion of the Jews

I. Their national preservation through so long a tract of time will furnish a wonderful illustration of the Divine power.

1. They can look back along a line of ancestry compared with which that of the Norman and the Saxon are but of yesterday. Nations which did not exist till long after the Jew had acquired a history, have long ago run their course; but he is unchanged.

2. Nor will any of the ordinary means of national preservation account for their continuance.

(1) They have not, like the Chinese, been stationary, and built in from the rest of the human family. From about B.C. 740, till the destruction of Jerusalem, they suffered as many dispersions, partial or entire, as there were centuries.

(2) Foreign alliances will not explain it. For, besides the fiercest commotions within, they have sustained a quick succession of the most sanguinary invasions from without.

(3) Arms, climate, genius, politics, equally fail to explain it. For they have been crumbled and scattered over the face of the earth; and yet they exist. Old empires which oppressed them have fallen; but the Jew has lived on amidst their ruins. Young nations have started into being, and he has been present to mingle with their elements, but never uniting. And, as if to complete the wonder, their number at this moment is very nearly the same as it was on their leaving Egypt.

3. Now, the only way to account for their preservation is the scriptural one, viz., to ascribe it to Divine power. I am God, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. When, then, they shall be turned to the Lord, with what new emphasis and enlarged meaning will they have to sing Psa_124:1-8.

II. God shall be glorified when it shall be seen that this preservation has not been effected by mere power, but that, from first to last, that power was under the guidance of wisdom, or was exercised according to a plan. A new light is dawning on the mind of men respecting this plan.

1. Formerly the historian only recorded facts. But now it has occurred to him that all the facts of history are connected; that could the principles of this connection be traced history would form one organic whole; and hence, to trace and to expound these principles is now the highest office of the historianthe philosophy of history.

2. Every lover of the Bible, however, should remember that its histories were never written in any other way. It both states the facts, and the principles which unite them. True, after sketching the early history of the race, it confines its history to the

Jews. But in that you have, in effect, a type of the whole. And more; in that, you frequently catch glimpses of the others at the most eventful moments of their existence. And more still; the Bible is prophetic as well as historic. Before Herodotus had begun to amass his materials, Isaiah had sung the glory of the latter day; and Daniel had foretold the kingdoms which would arise to the end of time.

3. The Bible never speaks of the course of human events but as conducted on a great plan. And with this peculiarity, that from the time of the promise to Abraham, the entire plan was regulated in relation to his posterity. Nay, ages earlier than that the plan began to evolve (Deu_32:7-8). The great principle on which the habitable part of the globe was mapped out was a principle of relation to the chosen people. And, as the great drama of Providence unfolded, the civilised world invariably found itself involved with that people. Read Psa_78:1-72 th, 105th, and 106th, and do you not hear Jehovah, as He leads them through the nations, saying, Touch not Mine anointed, and do My prophets no harm? Are they invaded and oppressed? Who delivered up Jacob to be a spoil, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not Jehovah? Does the Assyrian afflict Israel? The Assyrian, saith God, is the rod of My hand. Does the Persian deliver Israel? God calls Cyrus by name. Did nations change hands in consequence of the Persian movement? I have given Egypt for thy ransom; Cush and Sheba for thee. Have the ancient persecutors of Israel perished? Their destruction was foretold! And when, at length, the time shall have come, yea, the set time to favour Zion, what ground will there be for saying, Ye know that not one thing has failed of all that the Lord your God spake concerning you!

III. Gods glory shall be enhanced when it shall appear that the entire plan of His conduct towards israel has directly tended to promote their highest welfare by illustrating the great principles of His moral government.

1. The principle of mediationof making the conduct or relationship of one a reason for blessing others. God hath not cast away His people. They are still beloved for the fathers sakes, and their conversion will, at length, establish this fact. It will show them that they have never been absolutely renounced, and why Abraham himself was beloved, and that there never was but one Mediator between God and man, the day of whose coming Abraham saw and was glad.

2. Justice (verse 22). Looking back on their history they will behold it covered with the memorials of the Divine displeasure against sin, and learn that every stroke of His fatherly chastisement was intended to bring them in penitence to His feet.

3. The bringing of good out of evil. It will be seen that God has made the mutual jealousy of the Jew and Gentile an occasion of good to each. The apostacy of the human race was the occasion of Israels election at the first. And when, after repeated apostacies, Israel was abandoned, that became the occasion of salvation to the Gentiles (verse 15). Their slavery in Egypt was a time of merciful visitation for that country. Their seventy years captivity in Babylon were calculated to enlighten and to bless the people of that empire. And at their conversion they will see with amazement that the very act which completed their guiltthe crucifixion of Christhas become the means of their own salvation.

4. The timing and distribution of Gods judgments and mercies so as to make us feel our entire dependence on Him. Would you know, e.g., why it was that Israel, when brought out of Egypt, was not led straight to Canaan? (Deu_8:2-3). Would you know why it was that the coming of Christ was so long delayed; and why the conversion of the Jews did not take place at the commencement of the Christian dispensation?

(verse 32). God waited for the Gentiles till they had proved that the world by wisdom would never know God. And He is now waiting for the Jews till it shall be evident that all ground for self-dependence has utterly perished.

IV. But what if this great system of discipline should leave them worse than it found them? Would not their conversion redound, to a degree inconceivable, to the glory of God? The strength of a mechanical power is estimated by the resistance which it overcomes. And the honour which will accrue to the grace of God in the conversion of the Jews is to be estimated partly by the amount and the duration of their previous resistance to that grace.

1. Viewed in this light their conversion will reflect transcendent honour on the power of the grace which effects it. For we are not now speaking of the conversion of a people who had never before enjoyed the light of revelation, but of a people who, in this sense, have never been in darkness. Nor are we speaking of a people who were merely indifferent to Christianity, but of a people who have ever been actively hostile to all spiritual religion. Nor are we speaking of this people as nominally converted merely, as many of the European nations were. To exchange the form of godliness for the power proclaims the presence of a Divine agent; but to worship the very Being on whom the heart had hitherto vented its bitterest execrations, implies a change so great that it might almost excuse unbelief for saying, If the Lord would open windows in heaven, might this thing be? But unbelief itself is silenced by the declaration, I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.

2. Associated with this display of omnipotent energy there will be the exercise of unlimited grace in forgiveness. When it is remembered that the Jews of that future day will be the descendants and approvers of those who shouted, Away with Him; crucify Him; His blood be upon us and upon our children! and that, by their persevering unbelief, generation after generation have virtually crucified the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame, how amazing appears that exercise of mercy which is to cancel such an accumulation of guilt! When they shall see that they owe their forgiveness to that blood which they invoked in guilty imprecations on their own heads, what all-subduing views will they obtain of the prevalence of His intercession, of the unchangeableness and riches of His grace!

3. This change will take place at such a period as shall still further redound to the glory of God. There is a fulness of time for it. As the coming of Christ took place at a crisis when the state of the world demonstrated the necessity for it, and displayed its grace, so doubtless will be His coming in the conversion of the Jews. Probably they will have reached the last stage of guilty unbelief; or they will be sorely pressed by evils from without; or, abandoning all expectation of ever beholding their Messiah, they will have given themselves up to despair; or all these forms of evil will have combined in one. This we know, that the design of the whole gospel constitution is that no flesh should glory in His presence; that the inscription on the topstone of the fabric will be, To the praise of the glory of His grace.

4. In harmony with the spiritual and Divine character of this event will be the means or manner of its accomplishment. Not that all means will be dispensed with. But these shall be of so humble a character, and their success shall so far exceed all human calculation as to furnish the most glorious exposition of the words, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.

V. Another element of the glory which will redound to God will be found in the number

of the converted. A few here and there will doubtless be renewed, from time to time, prior to that period. But then the change will be so general as to satisfy the large prediction that all Israel shall be saved. They shall come from the east and from the west, etc., to swear allegiance to the Cross of Christ. And what joy will seize the Gentile Church when it shall be announced, Then hath God also to the Jews granted repentance unto life! And if there is joy in heaven among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth, who can conceive the rapture when it shall be there proclaimed, All Israel is saved!

VI. This reminds us of the further accession of glory to God from the conversion of the Jews, resulting from the effects of the event upon others.

1. For what an unsurpassable proof will it furnish of the Divinity of the whole scheme of revelation! As the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost was reserved by God for the crowning proof of the new economy, so the greater effusion of the same Spirit, upon the same people, is reserved to complete the proof of its claims as it draws towards a close.

2. What an unsurpassable proof will that event display of the all-sufficiency of the grace of God! At the opening of the Christian economy in the conversion of Saul Christ showed forth all long-suffering for a pattern, etc. In a similar manner God appears to be reserving the richest display of His saving grace till towards the last.

3. What an impulse, too, will be given to the piety of every part of the Christian Church l (verse 12). The newly-converted Jews will probably exhibit a measure of self-denying zeal for the glory of God, which the Church had come to consider absolutely impracticable, For he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.

4. How eminently will this increase of the Church tend to the union of all its parts! That most ancient of all schisms between Jew and Gentile shall then be healed. Every minor distinction in the Church shall cease. And thus it will be seen that an important step has been gained towards the attainment of that which God hath purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation,, of the fulness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ.

5. And will notmust not all this inconceivably augment the joy of the Church? (J. Harris, D.D.)

Gods remainder

1. We are living in a time when the reigning influences of society tempt or drive from integrity and purity; and some who were venerated shock the confidence reposed in them by grievous falls. There are dangers in such times that touch conscience and try faith. But God is not changed; moral virtue is not unreal; there are still men good and true. God hath not cast away His people. There are seven thousand reserved amid the general degeneracy.

2. Baal was the idea of prolific reproduction in nature. His was a popular worship ever, and set up its accursed altars in the Holy Land. Pouring light upon the faith of the new kingdom of redeeming grace from ancient history, as was his wont, Paul goes back to that dark spot. He is showing that no matter how many fall away faith lives on. The times are never so bad that they can corrupt utterly the immortal grace that lies hidden in the heart of the Church. Mammon may establish its worship, but there

is still a holy place, and an ark of the covenant, sacraments and ministry, and heavenly grace. God does not cast away His people.

3. The apostle recalls the old prophet Elijah, and makes a strong case. Matters in Church and State had come to the worst. Two tottering thrones, on soil soaked with family blood, frowned at one another in anger, but upheld no just law and protected no personal rights. Over one of the fragments of the schism ruled a tyrantAhabconsistent in cruelty and persevering in appetite, with Jezebel, who made royalty contemptible and womanhood shameful. Ahab and Jezebel are names of vices almost as much as of persons, and have been for nearly three thousand years. After his victory at Carmel, Elijahs splendid dream of the reformation of Gods kingdom was broken. When men animated by great purposes fail, they seem smaller to themselves than ever. It was like the hiding of the face of God. But now there comes a magnificent revelation which shows that true greatness does not stand in great results that can be seen. Success does not lie in the numbers counted. Power is stored up in hidden places and in lonely consciences. Have done with measuring Gods power with your geometry, or estimating His army by arithmetic. Do the duty that lies nearest thee. It scatters doubt; overcomes opposition; breaks up despair. The Almighty takes care of His reserves. We want the inspiration of this better faith. Consider two facts

I. The inroads of a subtle and popular worldly-mindedness, weakening the Church deplorably in its conscience and its heart. There is a power attacking Christianity from without, and corrupting it within. What are the foremost among the objects of the people in business and social life? Duty and righteousness? Do the young enter social life to carry there the influence of Christ? What spirit is in the ascendant in our populations? Is there not here the man of sin who is anti-Christ? Worldliness is a false god; lying, because it makes promises which are never kept; cruel, because it kills the better life; impious, because it defeats the glorious end for which God put His image in every man. This impious secularism creeps into the Church. It is charged that its converts do not come up to its standard, and that concessions are made of principle, and mercenary treacheries adopted to crowd its seats. Retribution cannot but follow if these things be true. But spiritual power is not to be judged by outward achievements. Granted that the world is as worldly, unbelief as prevalent, inconsistency as widespread, the Church as timid and supple as prophets fear or sceptics declare. What saith the answer of God? I have reserved, etc. This opens to us the opposite fact

II. The immortal survival of the secret life of the Church and of personal piety, although it is in a minority, and cometh not with observation. God makes much out of little, and saves by a handful of heroes, calling up His reserves out of obscurity, and never letting His altar fires die out. Seven thousand a slight proportion. They were out of sight, scattered saints crouching in corners. Elijah was looking on things on their earthly side. Not so the All-seeing. There was an unreckoned hope in obscure men and women Elijah did not know. Always a light left burning in Switzerland, in Germany, in England, in Scotland. The gates of hell do not prevail.

III. Here is, then, a law for practical use. What God requires of us is personal fidelity, or the earnest training of private Christian character in each one by himself, irrespective of any visible results or any possible discouragements. For this there are the clearest grounds.

1. It follows straight on in the way of the beginnings of the Church under the hand of the Lord. Get one man brave enough to do right against any maxims of a majority; one woman brave enough to lift others into her own pathway of light, and you are

working precisely in the line of Him who knows what is in man, and redeems the race.

2. The doctrine is strong in that it is practicable. Every individual has one realm all his ownhis conscience. Disappointed, baffled, elsewhere, he can make that all Christian. Pagan pleasures may allure others. You may not know where othershelpersare. But your own place is in the munitions of rocks. And the Master will always be there with you.

3. This sphere of personal Christian character touches others wonderfully, but never depends upon them so as to surrender to them if they go over to Baal. Your knees are your own to bend to whom you will. The apostles called no convention. Great reforms are in single souls before they are in parliaments, synods, or constitutions. Gods harvests spring from single, solitary seeds. It is not miracle but law. The patient power of the Lord reserves His remnant of faithful hearts. His work is done first by single, then by united hands. Character, steadfast, pure, holy, is at once its force and its fruit. (Bp. Huntington.)

Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias?

The Old Testament Scriptures

I. Are not superseded.

II. Ought to be carefully studied.

III. Illustrate the principles of the new. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

The prophets complaint and Gods answer

I. The complaint of the prophet.

1. Hasty.

2. Erring.

3. Desponding.

II. The answer of god.

1. Exact.

2. Reproving.

3. Inspiring. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

Mistakes concerning the number of the righteous

Sometimes we make them from

I. The peculiar state of our own minds. This seems to have been the condition of Elijah. His language betrays

1. Severity.

2. Petulance.

3. Despair.

II. Observing multiplied instances of false profession. The apostasy of one pretender excites more attention than the lives of solid, steady Christians.

III. The righteous themselves. Because of.

1. The obscurity of their stations.

2. The diffidence of their dispositions.

3. The manner of their conversion.

4. The diversity of their opinions.

5. The imperfection of their character.

Application:

1. The use which the apostle makes of his subject.

2. Are you among the number of the saved?

3. Let all true Christians consider the Author and end of their salvation.

4. Remember also for whom you have been saved. (W. Jay.)

Despondency

I. Looks at the things which are seen.

II. Overlooks those which are unseen. (J. Lyth, D.D.)

But what saith the answer of God?

The answer of God to Elijah

I. All doubts in matters of religion are to be decided by the Word of God (Joh_5:39; Mar_12:24). Elijah erred because he spake without his book. Remember this

1. In all matters controverted. When it is questioned whether images are to be worshipped, angels and saints prayed to, etc., who shall resolve us? We are to take no mans word, not even the word of Elijah for a matter of faith. What saith the Scripture? Men may err, but the answer of God is according to truth.

2. In matters of practice. If it be questioned whether thou shalt break the Sabbath, deceive thy neighbour, etc. Thy companions, it may be, and thine own heart will entice thee to do such things, but what saith the Scripture? They which do such things shall be damned.

II. The Church of God shall never be brought to such an exigent in the most difficult times, but that there shall be many thousands which shall worship God in spirit and truth.

1. The best on earth do err, as Elijah who erred by a passion of anger and fear. Order your passions by the law of grace, for if they be ungoverned they blind the mind, and as unruly horses draw the chariot of our judgment into the bye-paths of error.

2. Elijah erred in his censure concerning true worshippers; be not, then, rash in

censuring. It is rashness to censure particular men, much more whole Churches to be antichristian. How darest thou refuse communion with them who have communion with Christ?

3. Neither multitude nor visibility are certain notes of the true Church, for then there had been no Church in Elijahs time, for the multitude was with Ahab and Jezebel, and Elijah could not discern one beside himself. The Papists say the Church was always visible, but the creed confuteth them, for we believe in the holy Catholic Church. But holiness is invisible and so is Catholicity. We may grant that particular Churches are visible, and yet here some cautions are to be remembered. They may be invisible in respect

(1) Of place. As the sun is always visible, but to us only when it ariseth in our hemisphere. So at Jerusalem the Church was not to be seen when it removed to Pella.

(2) Of the time, as in Elijahs and Queen Marys days. As the sun behind a cloud in some respect is invisible, so may it be said of a Church.

(3) Of persons which should discern it. A Church is sometimes invisible through the fault of mens eyes, which are either weak as of Elijah, or blind as of them which hate the Church.

III. Those who in dangerous times are preserved in grace are so preserved merely by the power and goodness of God (1Sa_25:39; 1Th_5:23; 2Ti_4:18; Jud_1:24).

1. Though Jezebel search every corner of the land, yet God reserveth seven thousand which bow not the knees to Baal. God can keep us from our enemies; let persecutors cease their malicious practices, and let us serve God without fear.

2. In regard to the preaching of the gospel these are golden days, but in regard of the overflowing of iniquity these are perilous times. Art thou preserved? glorify God. It is not thy goodness that thou dost not as others, but the goodness of God.

3. Be admonished of two things.

(1) Presume not of thine own strength. Peter bragged of his courage, and yet played the coward. Hazael thought great scorn ever to do as Elisha foretold to him, and yet afterwards he did such things.

(2) Be not secure and careless. God reserveth some, but those which use the means to persevere in well doing. (Elnathan Parr, B.D.)

EBC, ISRAEL, HOWEVER, NOT FORSAKEN"A PEOPLE disobeying and contradicting." So the Lord of Israel, through the Prophet, had described the nation. Let us remember as we pass on what a large feature in the prophecies, and indeed in the whole Old Testament, such accusations and exposures are. From Moses to Malachi, in histories, and songs, and, instructions, we find everywhere this tone of stern truth telling, this unsparing detection and description of Israelite sin. And we reflect that every one of these utterances, humanly speaking, was the voice of an Israelite; and that whatever reception it met with at the moment-it was sometimes a scornful or angry reception, oftener a reverent one-it was ultimately treasured, venerated, almost worshipped, by the Church of this same rebuked and humiliated Israel. We ask ourselves what this has to say about the true origin of these utterances, and the true nature of the environment into which, they fell. Do they not bear witness to

the supernatural in both? It was not "human nature" which, in a race quite as prone, at least, as any other, to assert itself, produced these intense and persistent rebukes from within, and secured for them a profound and lasting veneration. The Hebrew Scriptures, in this as in other things, are a literature which mere man, mere Israelite man, "could not have written if he would, and would not have written if he could." Somehow, the Prophets not only spoke with an authority more than human, but they were known to speak with it. There was a national consciousness of divine privilege: and it was inextricably bound up with a national conviction that the Lord of the privileges had an eternal right to reprove His privileged ones, and that He had, as a fact, His accredited messengers of reproof, whose voice was not theirs but His; not the mere outcry of patriotic zealots, but the Oracle of God. Yea, an awful privilege was involved in the reception of such reproofs: "You only have I known; therefore will I punish you". (Amo_3:2)

But this is a recollectlon by the way. St. Paul, so we saw in our last study, has quoted Isaiahs stern message, only now to stay his troubled heart on the fact that the unbelief of Israel in his day was, if we may dare to put it so, no surprise to the Lord, and therefore no shock to the servants faith. But is he to stop there, and sit down, and say, "This must be so"? No; there is more to follow, in this discourse on Israel and God. He has "good words, and comfortable words," (Zec_1:13) after the woes of the last two chapters, and after those earlier passages of the Epistle where the Jew is seen only in his hypocrisy, and rebellion, and pride. He has to speak of a faithful Remnant, now as always present, who make as it were the golden unbroken link between the nation and the promises. And then he has to lift the curtain, at least a corner of the curtain, from the future, and to indicate how there lies waiting there a mighty blessing for Israel, and through Israel for the world. Even now the mysterious "People" was serving a spiritual purpose in their very unbelief; they were occasioning a vast transition of blessing to the Gentiles, by their own refusal of blessing. And hereafter they were to serve a purpose of still more illustrious mercy. They were yet, in their multitudes, to return to their rejected Christ. And their return was to be used as the means of a crisis of blessing for the world.

We seem to see the look and hear the voice of the Apostle, once the mighty Rabbi, the persecuting patriot, as he begins now to dictate again. His eyes brighten, and his brow clears, and a happier emphasis comes into his utterance, and he sets himself to speak of his peoples good, and to remind his Gentile brethren how, in Gods plan of redemption, all their blessing, all they know of salvation, all they possess of life eternal, has come to them through Israel. Israel is the Stem, drawing truth and life from the unfathomable soil of the covenant of promise. They are the grafted Branches, rich in every blessing-because they are the mystical seed of Abraham, in Christ.

I say therefore, did God ever thrust away His people? Away with the thought! For I am an Israelite, of Abrahams seed, Benjamins tribe; full member of the theocratic race and of its first royal and always loyal tribe; in my own person, therefore, I am an instance of Israel still in covenant. God never thrust away His people, whom He foreknew with the foreknowledge of eternal choice and purpose. That foreknowledge was "not according to their works," or according to their power; and so it holds its sovereign way across and above their long unworthiness. Or do you not know, in Elijah, in his story, in the pages marked with his name, what the Scripture says? How he intercedes before God, on Gods own behalf, against Israel, saying, (1Ki_19:10) "Lord, Thy prophets they killed, and Thy altars they dug up; and I was left solitary, and they seek my life"? But what says the oracular answer to him? "I have left for Myself seven thousand men, men who bowed never knee to Baal". (1Ki_19:18) So therefore, at the present season also, there proves to be a remnant, "a leaving" left by the Lord for Himself, on the principle of election of

grace; their persons and their number following a choice and gift whose reasons lie in God alone. And then follows one of those characteristic "footnotes" of which we saw an instance above: (Rom_10:17) But if by grace, no longer of works; "no longer," in the sense of a logical succession and exclusion: since the grace proves, on the other principle, no longer grace. But if of works, it is no longer grace; since the work is no longer work. That is to say, when once the grace principle is admitted, as it is here assumed to be, "the work" of the man who is its subject is "no longer work" in the sense which makes an antithesis to grace; it is no longer so much toil done in order to so much pay to be given. In other words, the two supposed principles of the divine Choice are in their nature mutually exclusive. Admit the one as the condition of the "election," and the other ceases; you cannot combine them into an amalgam. If the election is of grace, no meritorious antecedent to it is possible in the subject of it. If it is according to meritorious antecedent, no sovereign freedom is possible in the divine action, such freedom as to bring the saved man, the saved remnant, to an adoring confession of unspeakable and mysterious mercy.

This is the point, here in this passing "footnote," as in the longer kindred statements above (chap. 9), of the emphasised allusion to "choice" and "grace." He writes thus that he may bring the believer, Gentile or Jew, to his knees, in humiliation, wonder, gratitude, and trust. "Why did I, the self-ruined wanderer, the self-hardened rebel, come to the Shepherd who sought me, surrender my sword to the King who reclaimed me? Did I reason myself into harmony with Him? Did I lift myself, hopelessly maimed, into His arms? No; it was the gift of God, first, last, and in the midst. And if so, it was the choice of God." That point of light is surrounded by a cloud world of mystery, though within those surrounding clouds there lurks, as to God, only rightness and love. But the point of light is there, immovable, for all the clouds; where fallen man chooses God, it is thanks to God who has chosen fallen man. Where a race is not "thrust away," it is because "God foreknew." Where some thousands of members of that race, while others fall away, are found faithful to God, it is because He has "left them for Himself, on the principle of choice of grace." Where, amidst a widespread rejection of Gods Son Incarnate, a Saul of Tarsus, an Aquila, a Barnabas, behold in Him their Redeemer, their King, their Life, their All, it is on that same principle. Let the man thus beholding and believing give the whole thanks for his salvation in the quarter where it is all due. Let him not confuse one truth by another. Let not this truth disturb for a moment his certainty of personal moral freedom, and of its responsibility. Let it not for a moment turn him into a fatalist. But let him abase himself, and give thanks, and humbly trust Him who has thus laid hold of him for blessing. As he does so, in simplicity, not speculating but worshipping, he will need no subtle logic to assure him that he is to pray, and to work, without reserve, for the salvation of all men. It will be more than enough for him that his Sovereign bids him do it, and tells him that it is according to His heart.

To return a little on our steps, in the matter of the Apostles doctrine of the divine Choice: the reference in this paragraph to the seven thousand faithful in Elijahs day suggests a special reflection. To us, it seems to say distinctly that the "election" intended all along by St. Paul cannot possibly be explained adequately by making it either an election (to whatever benefits) of mere masses of men, as for instance of a nation, considered apart from its individuals; or an election merely to privilege, to opportunity, which may or may not be used by the receiver. As regards national election, it is undoubtedly present and even prominent in the passage, and in this whole section of the Epistle. For ourselves, we incline to see it quite simply in ver. 2 (Rom_11:2) above; "His people, whom He foreknew." We read there, what we find so often in the Old Testament, a sovereign choice of a nation to stand in special relation to God; of a nation taken, so to

speak, in the abstract, viewed not as the mere total of so many individuals, but as a quasi-personality. But we maintain that the idea of election takes another line when we come to the "seven thousand." Here we are thrown at once on the thought of individual experiences, and the ultimate secret of them, found only in the divine Will affecting the individual. The "seven thousand" had no aggregate life, so to speak. They formed, as the seven thousand, no organism or quasi-personality. They were "left" not as a mass, but as units; so isolated, so little grouped together, that even Elijah did not know of their existence. They were just so many individual men, each one of whom found power, by faith, to stand personally firm against the Baalism of that dark time, with the same individual faith which in later days, against other terrors, and other solicitations, upheld a Polycarp, an Athanasius, a Huss, a Luther, a Tyndale, a De Seso, a St. Cyran. And the Apostle quotes them as an instance and illustration of the Lords way and will with the believing of all time. In their case, then, he both passes as it were through national election to individual election, as a permanent spiritual mystery; and he shows that he means by this an election not only to opportunity but to holiness. The Lords "leaving them for Himself" lay behind their not bowing their knees to Baal. Each resolute confessor was individually enabled, by a sovereign and special grace. He was a true human personality, freely acting, freely choosing not to yield in that terrible storm. But behind his freedom was the higher freedom of the Will of God, saving him from himself that he might be free to confess and suffer. To our mind, no part of the Epistle more clearly than this passage affirms this individual aspect of the great mystery. Ah, it is a mystery indeed; we have owned this at every step. And it is never for a moment to be treated therefore as if we knew all about it. And it is never therefore to be used to confuse the believers thought about other sides of truth. But it is there, as a truth among truths; to be received with abasement by the creature before the Creator, and with humble hope by the simple believer.

He goes on with his argument, taking up the thread broken by the "footnote" upon grace and works: What therefore? What Israel, the nation, the character, seeks after, righteousness in the court of God, this it lighted not upon as one who seeks a buried treasure in the wrong field "lights not upon" it; but the election, the chosen ones, the "seven thousand" of the Gospel era, did light upon it. But the rest were hardened, (not as if God had created their hardness, or injected it; but He gave it to be its own penalty;) as it stands written, (Isa_29:10, and Deu_29:4) "God gave them a spirit of slumber, eyes not to see, and ears not to hear, even to this day." A persistent ("unto this day") unbelief was the sin of Israel in the Prophets times, and it was the same in those of the Apostles. And the condition was the same; God "gave" sin to be its own way of retribution. And David says, (Psa_69:22) in a Psalm full of Messiah, and of the awful retribution justly ordained to come on His impenitent enemies, "Let their table turn into a trap, and into toils, and into a stumbling block; and into a requital to them; darkened be their eyes, not to see, and their back ever bow Thou together."

The words are awful, in their connection here, and in themselves, and as a specimen of a class. Their purpose here is to enforce the thought that there is such a thing as positive divine action in the self-ruin of the impenitent; a fiat from the throne which "gives" a coma to the soul, and beclouds its eyes, and turns its blessings into a curse. Not one word implies the thought that He who so acts meets a soul tending upward and turns it downward; that He ignores or rejects even the faintest inquiry after Himself; that He is Author of one particle of the sin of man. But we do learn that the adversaries of God and Christ may be, and, where the Eternal so sees it good, are, sentenced to go their own way, even to its issues in destruction. The context of every citation here, as it stands in the Old Testament, shows abundantly that those so sentenced are no helpless victims of an

adverse fate, but sinners of their own will, in a sense most definite and personal. Only, a sentence of judgment is concerned also in the case; "Fill ye up then the measure". (Mat_13:32)

But then also in themselves and, as a specimen of a class, the words are a dark shadow in the Scripture sky. It is only by the way that we can note this here, but it must not be quite omitted in our study. This sixty-ninth Psalm is a leading instance of the several Psalms where the Prophet appears calling for the sternest retribution on his enemies. What thoughtful heart has not felt the painful mystery so presented? Read in the hush of secret devotion, or sung perhaps to some majestic chant beneath the minster roof, they still tend to affront the soul with the question, Can this possibly be after the mind of Christ? And there rises before us the form of One who is in the act of Crucifixion, and who just then articulates the prayer, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Can these "imprecations" have His sanction? Can He pass them, endorse them, as His Word?

The question is full of pressing pain. And no answer can be given, surely, which shall relieve all that pain; certainly nothing which shall turn the clouds of such passages into rays of the sun. They are clouds; but let us be sure that they belong to the cloud land which gathers round the Throne, and which only conceals, not wrecks, its luminous and immovable righteousness and love. Let us remark, for one point, that this same dark Psalm is, by the witness of the Apostles, as taught by their Master, a Psalm full of Messiah. It was undoubtedly claimed as his own mystic utterance by the Lamb of the Passion. He speaks in these dread words who also says, in the same utterance (ver. 9) (Rom_11:9), "The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up." So the Lord Jesus did endorse this Psalm. He more than endorsed it; He adopted it as His own. Let this remind us further that the utterer of these denunciations, even the first and non-mystical utterer, -David, let us say, - appears in the Psalm not merely as a private person crying out about his violated personal rights, but as an ally and vassal of God, one whose life and cause is identified with His. Just in proportion as this is so, the violation of his life and peace, by enemies described as quite consciously and deliberately malicious, is a violation of the whole sanctuary of divine righteousness. If so, is it incredible that even the darkest words of such a Psalm are to be read as a true echo from the depths of man to the Voice which announces "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, to every soul of man that doeth evil"? Perhaps even the most watchful assertor of the divine character of Scripture is not bound to assert that no human frailty in the least moved the spirit of a David when he, in the sphere of his own personality, thought and said these things. But we have no right to assert, as a known or necessary thing, that it was so. And we have right to say that in themselves these utterances are but a sternly true response to the avenging indignation of the Holy One.

In any case, do not let us talk with a loose facility about their incompatibility with "the spirit of the New Testament." From one side, the New Testament is an even sterner book than the Old; as it must be of course, when it brings sin and holiness "out into the light" of the Cross of Christ. It is in the New Testament that "the souls" of saints at rest are heard saying, (Rev_6:10) "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" It is in the New Testament that an Apostle writes, (2Th_1:6) "It is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them which trouble you." It is the Lord of the New Testament, the Offerer of the Prayer of the Cross, who said (Mat_23:32-35) "Fill ye up the measure of your fathers. I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth."

His eyes must have rested, often and again, upon the denunciations of the Psalms. He

saw in them that which struck no real discord, in the ultimate spiritual depth, with His own blessed compassions. Let us not resent what He has countersigned. It is His, not ours, to know all the conditions of those mysterious outbursts from the Psalmists consciousness. It is ours to recognise in them the intensest expression of what rebellious evil merits, and will find, as its reward.

But we have digressed from what is the proper matter before us. Here, in the Epistle, the sixty-ninth Psalm is cited only to affirm with the authority of Scripture the mystery of Gods action in sentencing the impenitent adversaries of His Christ to more blindness and more ruin. Through this dark and narrow door the Apostle is about to lead us now into "a large room" of hope and blessing, and to unveil to us a wonderful future for the now disgraced and seemingly rejected Israel.

HAWKER, Romans 11:1-10

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 Elijah? 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 recompense unto them: (10) Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always.

The doctrine of election hath been, and must be, to every carnal mind, of all others the most offensive. And as the Apostle, when entering upon this Epistle, engaged in it, with a special view to establish the Church in the grand truth, of justification before God in Christ, without the deeds of the law; this involved in it the doctrine of election. And the Apostle, in the ninth Chapter, devoted the whole of it to this one purpose. And, in that very interesting part of the Epistle, he most fully proved the certainty of the doctrine, in the rejection of the Jews, and the call of the Gentiles. Foreseeing, however, that what he had there advanced, would rouse the resentment of the carnal and ungodly, and that some would misconstrue the doctrine, as though the whole body of the Jews had been rejected of God; he enters upon this Chapter with shewing, the mistake of such men, and in his own instance pro