Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 9:3
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
3. I could wish ] Lit., I was wishing; the imperfect. A similar imperfect occurs Gal 4:20; where lit., “I was desiring.” Without discussing the grammatical theory of the construction we may paraphrase, I was on the way to wish, or, I was in course of wishing. Two things are implied; the tendency to the wish; and the obstruction of it. The Gr. for “to wish” here means specially to express a wish; almost, “to pray.” Paul’s love for Israel is such that, but for certain preventing reasons, he would form a wish to be cut off from Christ for their sakes.
myself ] Strongly emphatic in the Gr. His intense love for his brethren constrains him to contemplate himself as their victim, if such a victim there could be.
accursed ] Lit. an anathema; a thing devoted to ruin by a solemn curse. Such is the meaning of the word wherever else used by St Paul; 1Co 12:3 ; 1Co 16:22; Gal 1:8-9. (See Bp Lightfoot’s note on Gal 1:8.) No milder meaning will suit the intensity of this passage. St Paul could even have asked for the extremest imaginable suffering possible for man but for certain reasons in the nature of things which forbade him. These reasons may be given thus: To desire the curse of God would be to desire not only suffering, but moral alienation from Him, the withdrawal of the soul’s capacity to love Him. Thus the wish would be in effect an act of “greater love for our neighbour than for God [40] .” Again, the redeemed soul is “not its own:” to wish the self to be accursed from Christ would thus be to wish the loss of that which He has “bought and made His own.” But, the logical reason of the matter apart, we have only to read the close of ch. 8 to see how entire a moral impossibility it was for St Paul to complete such a wish. The words here were perhaps written with a tacit reference to the memorable passage, Exo 32:32-33. The answer there given to the request of Moses would alone suffice to forbid the completion of any similar request thereafter.
[40] Rev. H. Moule’s Suggestive Commentary on this Epistle.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For I could wish … – This passage has been greatly controverted. Some have proposed to translate it, I did wish, as referring to a former state, when he renounced Christ, and sought to advance the interests of the nation by opposing and defying him. But to this interpretation there are insuperable objections.
(1) The object of the apostle is not to state his former feelings, but his present attachment to his countrymen, and willingness to suffer for them.
(2) The proper grammatical construction of the word used here is not I did wish, but I could desire; that is, if the thing were possible. It is not I do wish, or did wish, but I could desire euchomen, implying that he was willing now to endure it; that his present love for them was so strong, that he would, if practicable, save them from the threatened ruin and apostasy.
(3) It is not true that Paul ever did wish before his conversion to be accursed by Christ, that is, by the Messiah. He opposed Jesus of Nazareth; but he did not believe that he was the Messiah. At no time would he have wished to be devoted to destruction by the Messiah, or by Christ. Nothing would have been more terrible to a Jew; and Saul of Tarsus never doubted that he was the friend of the promised Messiah, and was advancing the true interests of his cause, and defending the hopes of his nation against an impostor. The word, therefore, expresses a feeling which the apostle had, when writing this Epistle, in regard to the condition and prospects of the nation.
Were accursed from Chest – Might be anathema by Christ anathema einai apo tou Christou. This passage has been much controverted. The word rendered accursed (anathema) properly means,
(1) Anything that was set up, or set apart, or consecrated to the gods in the temples, as spoils of war, images, statues, etc. This is its Classical Greek meaning. It has a similar meaning among the Hebrews, It denoted what was set apart or consecrated to the service of God, as sacrifices or offerings of any kind. In this respect it is used to express the sense of the Hebrew word cherem anything devoted to Yahweh, without the possibility of redemption. Lev 27:21; Lev 27:29; Num 18:14; Deu 7:26; Jos 6:17-18; Jos 7:1; 1Sa 15:21; Eze 44:29.
(2) As what was thus dedicated to Yahweh was alienated from the use of him who devoted it, and was either burnt or slain and devoted to destruction as an offering, the word came to signify a devotion of any thing to destruction, or to complete ruin. And as whatever is devoted to destruction may be said to be subject to a curse, or to be accursed, the word comes to have this signification; 1Ki 20:42; Isa 34:5. But in none of these cases does it denote eternal death. The idea, therefore, in these places is simply, I could be willing to be destroyed, or devoted, to death, for the sake of my countrymen. And the apostle evidently means to say that he would be willing to suffer the bitterest evils, to forego all pleasure, to endure any privation and toil, nay, to offer his life, so that he might be wholly devoted to sufferings, as an offering, if he might be the means of benefiting and saving the nation. For a similar case, see Exo 32:32. This does not mean that Paul would be willing to be damned forever. For,
- The words do not imply that, and will not bear it.
(2)Such a destruction could in no conceivable way benefit the Jews.
(3)Such a willingness is not and cannot be required. And,
- It would be impious and absurd. No man has a right to be willing to be the eternal enemy of God; and no man ever yet was, or could be willing to endure everlasting torments.
From Christ – By Christ. Grotius thinks it means from the church of Christ. Others think it means after the example of Christ; and others, from Christ forever. But it evidently means that he was willing to be devoted by Christ; that is, to be regarded by him, and appointed by him, to suffering and death, if by that means he could save his countrymen. It was thus the highest expression of true patriotism and benevolence. It was an example for all Christians and Christian ministers. They should be willing to be devoted to pain, privation, toil, and death, if by that they could save others from ruin.
My kinsmen … – My countrymen; all of whom he regarded as his kinsmen, or relations, as descended from the same ancestors.
According to the flesh – By birth. They were of the same blood and parentage, though not now of the same religious belief.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ] This and the two preceding verses are thus paraphrased by Dr. Taylor: I am so far from insisting on the doctrine (of the rejection of the Jews) out of any ill-will to my countrymen, that I solemnly declare, in the sincerity of my heart, without the least fiction or dissimulation-and herein I have the testimony of my own conscience, enlightened and directed by the Spirit of God-that I am so far from taking pleasure in the rejection of the Jewish nation, that, contrariwise, it gives me continual pain and uneasiness, insomuch that, as Moses formerly (when God proposed to cut them off, and in their stead to make him a great nation, Ex 32:10) begged that he himself should rather die than that the children of Israel should be destroyed, Ex 32:32, so I could even wish that the exclusion from the visible Church, which will happen to the Jewish nation, might fall to my own share, if hereby they might be kept in it and to this I am inclined by natural affection, for the Jews are my dear brethren and kindred.
Very few passages in the New Testament have puzzled critics and commentators more than this. Every person saw the perfect absurdity of understanding it in a literal sense, as no man in his right mind could wish himself eternally damned in order to save another, or to save even the whole world. And the supposition that such an effect could be produced by such a sacrifice, was equally absurd and monstrous. Therefore various translations have been made of the place, and different solutions offered. Mr. Wakefieid says: “I see no method of solving the difficulty in this verse, which has so exercised the learning and ingenuity of commentators, but by the of Homer, I profess myself to be; and he translates the passage in a parenthesis, thus: (for I also was once an alien from Christ) on account of my brethren, c. But how it does appear that Saul of Tarsus was ever an alien from Christ on account of his kinsmen, is to me perfectly indiscernible. Let us examine the Greek text. , ‘For I did wish myself to be an anathema FROM Christ (, BY Christ, as some ancient MSS. read) for my brethren.’ As is the 1st per. sing. of the imperfect tense, some have been led to think that St. Paul is here mentioning what had passed through his own mind when filled with the love of God, he learned the rejection of the Jews and that he only mentions it here as a thing which, in the effusions of his loving zeal, had been felt by him inconsiderately, and without any Divine afflatus leading him to it; but that he does not intimate that now he felt any such unreasonable and preposterous wish.” I am afraid this is but ill calculated to solve the difficulty.
The Greek word , anathema, properly signifies any thing devoted to God, so as to be destroyed: it answers to the Hebrew cherem, which the Septuagint translate by it, and means either a thing or person separated from its former state or condition, and devoted to destruction. In this sense it is used, Deu 7:25, Deu 7:26; Jos 6:17, Jos 6:18; Jos 7:12.
It is certain that the word, both among the Hebrews and Greeks, was used to express a person devoted to destruction for the public safety. In Midrash hanneelam, in Sohar Chadash, fol. 15, Rabbi Chaijah the elder said: “There is no shepherd found like unto Moses, who was willing to lay down his life for the sheep; for Moses said, Ex 32:32, If thou wilt not pardon their sin, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written.” Such anathemas, or persons devoted to destruction for the public good, were common among all ancient nations. See the case of M. Curtius and Decius among the Romans. When a plague took place, or any public calamity, it was customary to take one of the lowest or most execrable of the people, and devote him to the Dii Manes or infernal gods. See proofs in Schleusner, and see the observations at the end of the chapter, (Ro 9:33 (note), point 1.). This one circumstance is sufficient to explain the word in this place. Paul desired to be devoted to destruction, as the Jews then were, in order to redeem his countrymen from this most terrible excision. He was willing to become a sacrifice for the public safety, and to give his life to redeem theirs. And, as Christ may be considered as devoting them to destruction, (see Matt. 24,) Paul is willing that in their place Christ should devote him: for I could wish myself, (or, as some excellent MSS. have it, ) , to be devoted BY Christ, to that temporal destruction to which he has adjudged the disobedient Jews, if by doing so I might redeem them. This, and this alone, seems to be the meaning of the apostle’s wish.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ; or, separated from Christ. This verse hath greatly vexed interpreters. Some read it, I did wish myself accursed from Christ: q.d. Before my conversion, I was willing to be accursed from Christ, to be a violent persecutor of the Christians, and so to be held of them as accursed for my brethrens sake. The vulgar Latin, and many Romanists, thus render the word , in the text; but the generality of interpreters read it as we do, not indicatively, but potentially; and they make an ellipsis in the words, pro ; the like is frequent; see Act 25:22; 1Co 2:8; 2Co 11:1. But then still the difficulty is, how, and in what sense, the apostle wished himself accursed, or separated from Christ. The received opinion is, that out of zeal to the glory of God, and love to his brethren, he was willing to be damned, that they all might be saved. Many of the ancients did thus expound this place: “Christ became a curse for us; and what marvel is it” (says one) “if the Lord would be made a curse for the servants, that a servant should be willing to become an anathema for the brethren.” “He doth not wish” (says another) “for his brethrens sake to be separated from the love and grace of Christ, but from the comforts of Christ, and the future happiness that we have by him: he is content to lose his part in the heavenly glory, if that might promote the glory of Christ, which would be more illustrated by the saving a whole nation, than a particular person: q.d. If this might be the fruit of it, if it would gain this end, I could, methinks, be content to part with all my hopes in Christ, even my eternal happiness, upon condition my brethren might be partakers thereof; so passionate and abundant love have I to and for them.” This exposition is not satisfactory; therefore so, he think the apostle here speaks of being accursed only for a season, or of being an anathema in this world. An anathema sometimes signifieth corporal death and destruction: of old, in times of common calamity, they were wont to sacrifice men to their idols and infernal gods, for the pacifying of their anger; such a sacrifice they called anathema, which is the word here used: q.d. For my brethrens sake, that so they might be saved, I could be content to be cut off, to be made a sacrifice, to die the worst of deaths. But if this be admitted, how then is that clause to be understood, from Christ? It is not, I could wish myself an anathema, but an anathema from Christ. To this they answer that favour this interpretation, That instead of from Christ, you may read, by Christ: q.d. I could be content to be cut off or destroyed by Christ, that my brethren might be saved. This sense of the words suits well with the zeal and kindness of Moses to his brethren, Exo 32:32; rather than they should not be pardoned and spared, he prays, that God would blot him out of the book that he had written: see annotations there. There is yet another, and a more probable, interpretation of this wish of the apostle. It is as if he had said, I could be willing to be separated or excommunicated from the church of Christ, for the sake and salvation of my country and nation. Anathema (says Hesychius) signifies , excommunicate; 1Co 16:22; If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema; let him be removed from the Christian assemblies, deprived of those Christian privileges that are afforded there. Gal 1:8,9, Let him be an anathema that teacheth another gospel; i.e. turned out of the church of Christ, and avoided by all true Christians. If this sense be admitted, then from Christ must signify, from the body of Christ; and so the word Christ is used, 1Co 12:12; Gal 3:27. Christ being the Head of the body, he that is cut off from the body may be truly enough said to be cut off from Christ. Thus the apostle Paul, who was accused and persecuted by the Jews, for having made a defection from the law of Moses, and setting up Christian assemblies in opposition to their Judaical service, doth fitly express his kindness and love to them, in wishing himself deprived of those most valuable privileges, on condition they night be partakers thereof. To this it may be added, that in the primitive times, this anathematizing, or excommunicating, was attended with delivering up to Satan, and that with destruction of the flesh, with very sharp and severe punishments upon the bodies of men. And so anathema, in this notion, may be taken with this improvement, and may contain all those temporal calamities that he was willing to endure and undergo for their good: see D.H. in loc.
My kinsmen according to the flesh; so the Jews were by natural descent: see Gen 29:14.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. For I could wish that myself wereaccursed from Christ for“in behalf of”
my brethren, my kinsmenaccording to the fleshIn proportion as he felt himself severedfrom his nation, he seems to have realized all the more vividly theirnatural relationship. To explain away the wish here expressed, as toostrong for any Christian to utter or conceive, some have rendered theopening words, “I did wish,” referring it to hisformer unenlightened state; a sense of the words too tame to beendured: others unwarrantably soften the sense of the word”accursed.” But our version gives the true import of theoriginal; and if it be understood as the language rather of “strongand indistinct emotions than of definite ideas” [HODGE],expressing passionately how he felt his whole being swallowed up inthe salvation of his people, the difficulty will vanish, and we shallbe reminded of the similar idea so nobly expressed by Moses (Ex32:32).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ,…. Some consider this as the reason of the apostle’s great heaviness, and continual sorrow of heart, because he had made such a wish as this, and read the words, “for I have wished”, or “did wish”; that is, in my unregenerate state, whilst I was a persecutor of Christ, and a blasphemer of his name, I wished to be for ever separated from him, and to have nothing to do with him; for then I thought I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus, and this I did out of respect to the Jewish nation, and because I would not relinquish the Jewish religion; but oh! what a trouble of mind is it to me? what uneasiness does it give me when I think of it, and reflect upon it? But this can never be the apostle’s meaning, for he would never have appealed to Christ in so solemn a manner, and took an oath upon it, for the truth of his enmity to Christ, and alienation from him before conversion, which everybody knew; nor was it anything strange, that whilst he was an unbelieving Jew, he should wish himself separated from Jesus of Nazareth, and always to remain so; and his having done this before his embracing of Christianity could be no evidence of his present affection for the Jewish nation, especially since he repented of it, and was sorry for it. But this wish, whatever is meant by it, is mentioned as an instance of his great love to his countrymen the Jews. Many have thought that his meaning is, that he had so great a value for them, that he could even wish himself, and be content to be eternally separated from Christ, everlastingly banished from his presence, never to enjoy communion more with him, or in other words, to be eternally damned, that they might be saved. But this is what could never be, and which he knew, was impossible to be done, and was contrary to that strong persuasion he had just expressed in the close of the foregoing chapter. Nor is it consistent with his love to Christ, to wish any thing of this kind; it would make him to love the Jews much better than Christ; since, according to this sense, he must wish to be parted from him, that they might be saved, and consequently must love them more than Christ: nor is it consistent with, but even contrary both to the principles of nature and grace; it is contrary to the principles of nature, for a man to desire his own damnation upon any consideration whatever; and it is contrary to the principle of grace, which always strongly inclines to be with Christ, and not separated from him; in a word, to be accursed from Christ in this sense, could be no proper means of the salvation of the Jews, and therefore it cannot be thought to be desirable, or wished for. Some things are said indeed for the qualifying of this sense of the words, as that the apostle said this inconsiderately, when he was scarcely himself, through an ecstasy of mind, and intemperate zeal, and an overflow of affection for his nation; but this is highly to reflect upon the apostle, and to represent him in a very unworthy manner, when it is certain he said this with the greatest deliberation and seriousness; he introduces it in the most solemn manner, with an appeal to Christ, the Holy Spirit, and his own conscience, and therefore it could never drop from him through incogitancy, and an overheated affection. Again, it is said, that this wish was made with a condition, if it was the will of God, but that he knew was not; or if it could be for the good of these people, this also he knew it could never be: the best qualification Of it is to say it is an hyperbolical expression; and so if it is, it must be with a witness, being such an hyperbole, as is not to be matched in sacred or profane writings. The words of Moses are thought to be a parallel one, “blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written”, Ex 32:32; but that is not to be understood of the book of eternal life; but either of the book of the law, as R. Sol. Jarchi expounds it, which God had ordered him to write, and his desire is, that his name might not stand there; or rather of the book of this temporal life, that he might die and not live. It remains then that these words must have another meaning. Now let it be observed, that the word , here translated “accursed”, answers to the Hebrew word , which, with the Jewish writers, is one sort of excommunication in use among them, and the greater sort; the forth of it, as given by them, is very horrible, and shocking r; [See comments on Joh 9:22]; and so we may observe the word “anathema” here used is mentioned as a form of excommunication in 1Co 16:22; of all such as love not Christ and his Gospel, and make it appear by their principles or practices, or both, that they do not, and so ought to be removed from the communion of churches. Now, taking the word in this sense, the apostle’s meaning is, that he could wish to be excommunicated from Christ; that is, from the body of Christ, from the church of Christ, Christ mystical, as the word “Christ” is used, 1Co 12:12; to be deprived of the ordinance of Christ’s house, to be degraded from his office in it, and not to be so much as a member in it. He saw that these branches, the people of the Jews, were going to be cut off, and no longer to be of the church of God; and such was his affection to them, that he could have wished rather to be cut off himself, that they might be spared; and this was an instance of great love to them, since, next to Christ, the church and the ordinances of it were exceeding dear unto, and highly valued by the apostle. Again, it is worthy of observation, that the Hebrew word , which the Septuagint render by , the word in the text, is used for any thing devoted to God, and which could not be alienated to any other use or service; and if it was a man, or any among men that was devoted, it was not to be redeemed, but was “surely to be put to death”, Le 27:29. Some have thought that Jephthah’s daughter was put to death upon this law; but be that as it will, the apostle here may reasonably be thought to allude unto it, and his sense be this, that he could wish himself , “to be devoted unto death”, not from Christ, but “by” Christ; and some copies read , “by”: I could wish that my dear Lord and Master, as if he should say, would appoint and order me to die, might this nation of mine but escape that ruin and destruction I see is coming upon them, as a nation and a church; I could be content to die the most accursed death, and be treated in the most ignominious manner, might they but be saved; a like expression is that of R. Ishmael s, “may I be an expiatory sacrifice for the children of Israel”;
“which (says one commentator t) he said, , “because of his love to them”; and it is as if he should say, all the punishment which is right to come upon them, I will take it on myself, in order to atone for them;”
and says another u,
“the sense is, he took upon him their redemption, and this he said, , “because of the greatness of his love”:”
now for a man to die for his country, that a whole nation perish not, was agreeably to the sentiments both of Jews and Gentiles, and was the highest instance of love among men; “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”, Joh 15:13; and this is carrying the sense of the apostle’s wish high enough, and not too far. The persons on whose account he could have expressed this wish, are described by their natural relation to him,
my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh: he calls them his brethren, not in a spiritual sense, nor in a strict natural sense, but in a general way, as being of the same nation: it is a saying with the Jews w, , “all the Israelites are brethren”; for the same reason he calls them kinsmen; and these appellations he uses to remove that ill will and prejudice they had conceived in their minds against him, and to signify the ground of his affection for them: and he adds, “according to the flesh”, to distinguish them from his spiritual brethren and relations; for though they were brethren in a national sense, they were not all so in a spiritual relation.
r Vid. Buxtorf. Lexic. Rabbinic. p. 827, 828. s Misn. Negaim, c. 2. sect. 1. t Bartenora in ib. u Maimon. in Misn. Negaim, c. 2. sect. 1. w Caphtor, fol. 38. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
I could wish (). Idiomatic imperfect, “I was on the point of wishing.” We can see that (I do wish) would be wrong to say. would mean that he does not wish (conclusion of second class condition). would be conclusion of fourth class condition and too remote. He is shut up to the imperfect indicative (Robertson, Grammar, p. 886).
Anathema (). See for this word as distinct from (offering) 1Cor 12:3; Gal 1:8 I myself ( ). Nominative with the infinitive and agreeing with subject of .
According to the flesh ( ). As distinguished from Paul’s Christian brethren.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
I could wish [] . Or pray as 2Co 13:7, 9; Jas 5:16. Lit., I was wishing; but the imperfect here has a tentative force, implying the wish begun, but stopped at the outset by some antecedent consideration which renders it impossible, so that, practically, it was not entertained at all. So Paul of Onesimus : “Whom I could have wished [] to keep with me,” if it had not been too much to ask (Phl 1:13). Paul would wish to save his countrymen, even at such sacrifice, if it were morally possible. Others, however, explain the imperfect as stating an actual wish formerly entertained. 50 Accursed from Christ [ ] . Compare Gal 1:8, 9; 1Co 12:3; 1Co 16:22. See on offerings, Luk 21:5. Set apart to destruction and so separated from Christ (Phi 1:21; Phi 3:8, 20). An expression of deep devotion. “It is not easy to estimate the measure of love in a Moses and a Paul. For our limited reason does not grasp it, as the child cannot comprehend the courage of warriors” (Bengel). Compare Moses, Exo 32:32.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For I could wish that myself were accursed,” (euchomen gar anathema einai autos) “For I was praying myself to be a curse,” separated from union with Christ, as an individual forever, if by such, the nation of Israel, his own people, might thereby be saved. This was the spirit of Moses for Israel, when he stood in the gap for them, Exo 32:11; Exo 32:32; Psa 106:23.
2) “From Christ for my brethren,” (apo tou Christou huper ton adelphon mou) “From Christ on behalf of, or in the stead of, my brethren,” Jewish brethren in the flesh. This is the Spirit of true love – the love of Jesus Christ, and God, the Father, for humanity, Joh 3:16, 2Co 8:9; 2Ti 2:10. This appears to be the very spirit of the substitutionary love of Jesus Christ for sinners, 1Pe 2:24.
3) “My kinsmen according to the flesh,” (ton surgenon mou kata sarka) “My kinsmen according to the fleshline,” those related by descent from a common racial ancestry, Rom 10:1-3; Rom 16:7; Rom 16:21.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3. For I could wish, etc. He could not have expressed a greater ardour of love than by what he testifies here; for that is surely perfect love which refuses not to die for the salvation of a friend. But there is another word added, anathema , which proves that he speaks not only of temporal but of eternal death; and he explains its meaning when he says, from Christ, for it signifies a separation. And what is to be separated from Christ, but to be excluded from the hope of salvation? It was then a proof of the most ardent love, that Paul hesitated not to wish for himself that condemnation which he saw impending over the Jews, in order that he might deliver them. It is no objection that he knew that his salvation was based on the election of God, which could by no means fail; for as those ardent feelings hurry us on impetuously, so they see and regard nothing but the object in view. So Paul did not connect God’s election with his wish, but the remembrance of that being passed by, he was wholly intent on the salvation of the Jews.
Many indeed doubt whether this was a lawful desire; but this doubt may be thus removed: the settled boundary of love is, that it proceeds as far as conscience permits; (285) if then we love in God and not without God’s authority, our love can never be too much. And such was the love of Paul; for seeing his own nation endued with so many of God’s benefits, he loved God’s gifts in them, and them on account of God’s gifts; and he deemed it a great evil that those gifts should perish, hence it was that his mind being overwhelmed, he burst forth into this extreme wish. (286)
Thus I consent not to the opinion of those who think that Paul spoke these words from regard to God only, and not to men; nor do I agree with others, who say, that without any thought of God, he was influenced only by love to men: but I connect the love of men with a zeal for God’s glory.
I have not, however, as yet explained that which is the chief thing, — that the Jews are here regarded as they were adorned with those singular tokens, by which they were distinguished from the rest of mankind. For God had by his covenant so highly exalted them, that by their fall, the faithfulness and truth of God himself seemed also to fail in the world: for that covenant would have thus become void, the stability of which was promised to be perpetual, as long as the sun and moon should shine in heaven. (Psa 72:7.) So that the abolition of this would have been more strange, than the sad and ruinous confusion of the whole world. It was not therefore a simple and exclusive regard for men: for though it is better that one member should perish than the whole body; it was yet for this reason that Paul had such a high regard for the Jews, because he viewed them as bearing the character, and, as they commonly say, the quality of an elect people; and this will appear more evident, as we shall soon see, from what follows.
The words, my kinsmen according to the flesh, though they contain nothing new, do yet serve much for amplification. For first, lest any one should think that he willingly, or of his own accord, sought cause of quarrel with the Jews, he intimates, that he had not put off the feeling of kindred, so as not to be affected with the destruction of his own flesh. And secondly, since it was necessary that the gospel, of which he was the preacher, should go forth from Sion, he does not in vain pronounce an eulogy in so many words on his own kindred. For the qualifying expression, according to the flesh, is not in my view added for the sake of extenuation, as in other places, but, on the contrary, for the sake of expressing his faith: for though the Jews had disowned Paul, he yet concealed not the fact, that he had sprung from that nation, the election of whom was still strong in the root, though the branches had withered. What Budoeus says of the word anathema , is inconsistent with the opinion of [ Chrysostom ] , who makes ἀνάθεμα and ἀνάθημα , to be the same.
(285) “ Ut ad aras usque procedat.” [ Ainsworth ] gives a similar phrase and explains its reason, “ Usque ad aras amicus — As far as conscience permits,” Gell., because in swearing they held the horns of the altar. — Ed.
(286) Most of those who take this view of the passage express the implied condition more distinctly than is done here. They have regarded the wish in this sense, “I could wish were it right or lawful.” So thought [ Chrysostom ] , [ Photius ] , [ Theophlylact ] , [ Luther ] , [ Parcus ], [ Beza ] , [ Estius ] , [ Lightfoot ] , [ Witsius ] , [ Mode ] , [ Whitby ] , and others. The words of [ Photius ] are given by [ Wolfius ] , “He says not, I wish to be separated, but I could wish, that is, were it possible — ἠυχόμην ἂν τουτ ἐστιν εἰ δυνατὸν ἦν, ” [ Stuart ] and [ Hodge ] adopt the same view. “It was a conditional wish,” says [ Pareus ] , “like that of Christ in Mat 26:39. Christ knew and Paul knew that it could not be granted, and yet both expressed their strong desire.” See Exo 32:32
Almost all critics agree that the Vulgate is wrong in rendering the verb optabam — “I did wish,” as though the Apostle referred to the time, as [ Ambrose ] supposed, when he was a Pharisee; but this is wholly inconsistent with the tenor of the passage. [ Erasmus ] , [ Grotius ] , [ Beza ] , and most others regard the verb as having an optative meaning; ἂν being understood after it, as the case is with ἐβουλόμην in Act 25:22, and ἤθελον in Gal 4:20
There are two other opinions which deserve notice. The first is, that “ anathema “ here means excommunication, and that “from Christ” signifies from his Church, Christ the head being taken for his body the Church, as in 1Co 12:12, and in Gal 3:27, according to the manner of the Hebrews, as [ Grotius ] says, who called the wife by the name of the husband, Isa 4:1. This is the view taken by [ Hammond ] , [ Grotius ] , and some of the Lutheran divines. But the word “ anathema “ has not in Scripture this meaning, though in after-ages it had attained it both in the Church and among the Rabbins. In the New Testament it occurs only here and in Act 23:14; 1Co 12:3; and Gal 1:8; and the verb ἀναθεματίζω is found in Mar 14:71; Act 23:12; and with κατὰ prefixed in Mat 26:74. The corresponding word in Hebrew, הרם, rendered “ anathema “ by the Septuagint, means two things: what is separated for a holy purpose and wholly devoted to God, incapable of being redeemed, Lev 27:28; and what is set apart and devoted to death or destruction, Jos 6:17; Ezr 10:8. It never means excommunication, but cutting off by death. Compare Exo 22:20, and Deu 13:1. It has hence been applied to designate a man that is execrable and accursed, deserving death. So the Apostle uses it in 1Co 16:22, and Gal 1:8
The other view is more in accordance with the meaning of the term. It is thought that “ anathema “ means an ignominious death, and that of one apparently separated from Christ; or that he wished to be made “an anathema” by Christ, or for the sake of Christ, or after Christ, that is, his example. The words ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ create all the difficulty in this case. This is the explanation given by [ Jerome ] , [ Locke ] , [ Limborch ] , [ Doddridge ] , and [ Scott ] The first meaning, however, as materially given by [ Calvin ] , is the most obvious and natural.
Both [ Haldane ] and [ Chalmers ] follow the Vulgate, and put the clause in a parenthesis, as expressing the Apostle’s wish when unconverted; but there is altogether an incongruity in the terms he employs to express this wish; he surely would not have said that he wished to be separated from Christ as an accursed thing, for that is the meaning of anathema; for while he was a Pharisee he deemed it a privilege and an honour even to persecute Christ. And we cannot suppose that the Apostle would now describe his former wish in terms unsuitable to what it really was, but as he now regarded it. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(3) I could wish . . .Rather, I could have wished. The wish, of course, related to what was really impossible. Still it is a nobly generous impulse, at which some weak minds have been shocked, and out of which others have made sentimental capital. Let us leave it as it is.
Accursed from Christ.Separated from Christ, and devoted to destruction. Does not the intensity of this expression help us to realise one aspect of the Atonementbeing made a curse for us (Gal. 3:13)? (The Greek word for curse is different, but comes to be nearly equivalent.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
3. I could wish Not I did wish, nor I do wish; but, if it were a thing permissible, either in the fact or in the wish, then I could wish. The apostle, then, does not rally form or entertain the wish, but he comes as nigh to it as the right allows. (See note on Mat 26:39.)
Accursed The Greek would be, I could wish myself an anathema from Christ. An anathema in the Jewish ritual was a thing consecrated to God. It was thereby God’s own property, no longer man’s. Hence it was required to be destroyed, and could not be redeemed. (Lev 27:28-29.) Cities, edifices, and their inhabitants were thereby devoted to destruction, as Jericho, (Jos 6:17; Jos 6:21,) and as, also, were the cities of the Canaanites. They were “sacred to perdition.” So in the New Testament Christ is made a curse, an anathema for us.
What the apostle, therefore, in his human affections could wish is, that he might take the place of his race and suffer an equivalent of its sufferings in its stead, that the race might be saved from them. This would not be wishing to commit their sin nor contract their guilt any more than Christ so did (as Revelation Gilbert Haven in the “Methodist Quarterly” has ably shown) for the human race. It simply would have sought to be their substitute in suffering. As to the question whether he included all the sufferings of eternal death, we may say that in a human hypothetical wish of this nature we are not to suppose that all the literal results are specifically thought through. Doubtless the example of Christ was most present to his mind, whose suffering was not eternal.
Even to the present day the Arabians will say, let my soul be a ransom for thee. The whole ritual system of substitutive victims dying for the sinner kept the eastern mind in full possession of the solemn thought of substitutive suffering. And so Paul’s deep human heart would have said to Israel, Think you I predict your future woes from hatred? I would go with you through the whole mass of misery, and suffer it in your stead.
From Christ In separation from him, as the Jews were; or (as Mr. Haven strikingly develops it) separated from Christ as Christ in his hour of darkness was from God.
My brethren, my kinsmen By this tender reiteration the apostle bespeaks his deep affection.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Rom 9:3. That myself were accursed, &c. That I myself were to be devoted to death [or made a sacrifice] after the example of Christ. Pere Simon has it, For the sake of Christ:Propter Christum. But the first is preferable. See also Dr. Waterland’s Sermons, vol. 1: p. 77. The word rendered accursed is ‘, by which the LXX translate the Hebrew word cherem, which signifies “persons or things devoted to destruction and extermination.” The Jewish nation were now an anathema, destined to destruction. St. Paul, to express his affection to them, says, he could wish, to save them from it, to become an anathema, and be destroyed himself. Elsner, with Dr. Clarke, joins ‘ with , I could wish, or desire from, or of Christ, that, &c. And he shews well, as has been frequently done, how very absurd it would be to suppose that the Apostle meant, that he could be content to be delivered over to everlasting misery for the good of others. “I am so far from taking pleasure,” says the Apostle, “in the rejection of the Jewish nation, that on the contrary it gives me continual pain to think of it; insomuch, that [as Moses formerly when God proposed to cut them off, and in their stead to make of him a great nation, begged that he himself might rather die, than the children of Israel be destroyed, so] I could even wish that the exclusion from the visible church, which will happen to the Jewish nation, might fall to my own share, if thereby they might be kept in it.” See Locke, and Grotius, and the note on Exo 32:32; Exo 32:35.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
3 For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh:
Ver. 3. Were accursed ] Devoted to destruction, , as those malefactors among the heathens were, that in time of common calamity were sacrificed to their infernal gods, for pacifying their displeasure, that the plague might cease. Out of greatest zeal to God and love to his countrymen, the apostle wisheth himself anathema, that is, not to be separated from the Spirit and grace of Christ (for so he should have sinned), but from the comforts of Christ, the happiness that comes in by Christ, as one well interpreteth it. Charitas exuberans optat etiam impossibilia, saith Luther; his over abounding charity wishs impossibilities; but his wish was voluntas conditionata, saith one. His love to the Church was like the ivy, which if it cleave to a stone or an old wall, will rather die than forsake it. Somewhat like to this holy wish was that of Ambrose, that the fire of contentions kindled in the Churches might (if it were the will of God) be quenched with his blood. And that of Nazianzen, that (Jonah-like) he might be cast into the sea, so by it all might be calm in the public.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3 .] For I could wish (the imperf. is not historical , alluding to his days of Pharisaism, as Pelag. and others, but quasi-optative , as in reff. ‘ I was wishing,’ had it been possible , , , Phot [66] The sense of the imperf. in such expressions is the proper and strict one (and no new discovery, but common enough in every schoolboy’s reading): the act is unfinished, an obstacle intervening. So in Latin, ‘faciebam, ni ,’ the completed sentence being, ‘faciebam, et perfecissem, ni ’) that I myself (on see ch. Rom 7:25 ; it gives emphasis, as , [ 2Co 10:1 ] Gal 5:2 ; ‘I, the very person who write this and whom ye know’) were a curse (a thing accursed, in the LXX = , an irrevocable devotion to God, or, a thing or person so devoted. All persons and animals thus devoted were put to death; none could be redeemed, Lev 27:28-29 . The subsequent scriptural usage of the word arose from this. It never denotes simply an exclusion or excommunication, but always devotion to perdition, a curse. Attempts have been made to explain away the meaning here, by understanding excommunication , as Grot., Hammond, Le Clerc, &c.; or even natural death only, as Jerome, al.: but excommunication included cursing and delivering over to Satan: and the mere wish for natural death would, as Chrys. eloquently remarks, be altogether beneath the dignity of the passage. Perhaps the strangest interpretation is that of Dr. Burton: “St. Paul had been set apart and consecrated by Christ to His service; and he had prayed that this devotion of himself might be for the good of his countrymen:” it is however no unfair sample of a multitude of others, all more or less shrinking from the full meaning of the fervid words of the Apostle) from Christ (i.e. cut off and separated from Him for ever in eternal perdition. No other meaning will satisfy the plain sense of the words. in the sense of , making Christ the agent of the curse, would be hardly admissible: still less the joining, as Carpzov and Elsner, with . On this wish, compare Exo 32:32 ) in behalf of (in the place of; or, if thus I could benefit, deliver from perdition) my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh .
[66] Photius, Bp. of Constantinople, 858 891
The wish is evidently not to be pressed as entailing on the Apostle the charge of inconsistency in loving his nation more than his Saviour. It is the expression of an affectionate and self-denying heart, willing to surrender all things, even, if it might be so, eternal glory itself, if thereby he could obtain for his beloved people those blessings of the Gospel which he now enjoyed, but from which they were excluded. Nor does he describe the wish as ever actually formed; only as a conceivable limit to which, if admissible, his self-devotion for them would reach. Others express their love by professing themselves ready to give their life for their friends; he declares the intensity of his affection by reckoning even his spiritual life not too great a price, if it might purchase their salvation.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 9:3 . . . . For I could wish that I myself were anathema, etc. For the omission of see Act 25:22 , Gal 4:20 . Paul could wish this if it were a wish that could be realised for the good of Israel. The form of expression implies that the wish had actually been conceived, but in such sentences “the context alone implies what the present state of mind is” (Burton, Moods and Tenses , 33). is to be construed with : the idea of separation from Christ, final and fatal separation, is conveyed. For the construction cf. Gal 5:4 ( ). Gal 1:8 f., 1Co 12:3 ; 1Co 16:22 is the equivalent of the Hebrew , Deu 7:26 , Jos 7:12 that which is put under the ban, and irrevocably devoted to destruction. It is beside the mark to speak of such an utterance as this as unethical. Rather might we call it with Dorner “a spark from the fire of Christ’s substitutionary love”. There is a passion in it more profound even than that of Moses’ prayer in Exo 32:32 . Moses identifies himself with his people, and if they cannot be saved would perish with them; Paul could find it in his heart, were it possible, to perish for them. distinguishes these from his Christian brethren.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
could = used to. Figure of speech Anamnesis. App-6.
wish. App-134.
accursed. See Act 23:14.
Christ = the Christ. See Rom 9:1. The words in Rom 9:3 “For I” to “Christ” are in a parenthesis. Figure of speech Epitrechon. App-6.
according to. Greek. kata. App-104. The sorrow was on behalf of his brethren.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3.] For I could wish (the imperf. is not historical, alluding to his days of Pharisaism, as Pelag. and others, but quasi-optative, as in reff. I was wishing, had it been possible,- , , Phot[66] The sense of the imperf. in such expressions is the proper and strict one (and no new discovery, but common enough in every schoolboys reading): the act is unfinished, an obstacle intervening. So in Latin, faciebam, ni , the completed sentence being, faciebam, et perfecissem, ni ) that I myself (on see ch. Rom 7:25; it gives emphasis, as , [2Co 10:1] Gal 5:2; I, the very person who write this and whom ye know) were a curse (a thing accursed, in the LXX = , an irrevocable devotion to God, or, a thing or person so devoted. All persons and animals thus devoted were put to death; none could be redeemed, Lev 27:28-29. The subsequent scriptural usage of the word arose from this. It never denotes simply an exclusion or excommunication, but always devotion to perdition,-a curse. Attempts have been made to explain away the meaning here, by understanding excommunication, as Grot., Hammond, Le Clerc, &c.; or even natural death only, as Jerome, al.: but excommunication included cursing and delivering over to Satan:-and the mere wish for natural death would, as Chrys. eloquently remarks, be altogether beneath the dignity of the passage. Perhaps the strangest interpretation is that of Dr. Burton: St. Paul had been set apart and consecrated by Christ to His service; and he had prayed that this devotion of himself might be for the good of his countrymen:-it is however no unfair sample of a multitude of others, all more or less shrinking from the full meaning of the fervid words of the Apostle) from Christ (i.e. cut off and separated from Him for ever in eternal perdition. No other meaning will satisfy the plain sense of the words. in the sense of , making Christ the agent of the curse, would be hardly admissible: still less the joining,-as Carpzov and Elsner,- with . On this wish, compare Exo 32:32) in behalf of (in the place of; or, if thus I could benefit, deliver from perdition) my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
[66] Photius, Bp. of Constantinople, 858-891
The wish is evidently not to be pressed as entailing on the Apostle the charge of inconsistency in loving his nation more than his Saviour. It is the expression of an affectionate and self-denying heart, willing to surrender all things, even, if it might be so, eternal glory itself, if thereby he could obtain for his beloved people those blessings of the Gospel which he now enjoyed, but from which they were excluded. Nor does he describe the wish as ever actually formed; only as a conceivable limit to which, if admissible, his self-devotion for them would reach. Others express their love by professing themselves ready to give their life for their friends; he declares the intensity of his affection by reckoning even his spiritual life not too great a price, if it might purchase their salvation.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 9:3. , I could wish) A verb in the imperfect tense, involving in it a potential or conditional signification, involving the condition, if Christ would permit. His grief was unceasing [continual], but this prayer does not seem here to be asserted as unceasing, or absolute. Human words are not fully adequate to include in them [to express fully] the emotions of holy souls; nor are those emotions always the same; nor is it in the power of those souls always to elicit from themselves such a prayer as this. If the soul be not far advanced, it is incapable of [cannot comprehend] this. It is not easy to estimate the measure of love, in a Moses and a Paul. For the narrow boundary of our reasoning powers does not comprehend it; as the little child is unable to comprehend the courage of warlike heroes. In the case of those two men [duumvirs] themselves, the intervals in their lives, which may be in a good sense called extatic, were something sudden and extraordinary. It was not even in their own power to elicit from themselves such acts as these at any time they chose. Grief [heaviness] and sorrow for the danger and distress of the people; shame for their fault; zeal for their salvation, for the safety of so great a multitude, and for still farther promoting the glory of God through the preservation of such a people, so carried them away, as to make them for a time forget themselves, Exo 32:32. I am inclined to give this paraphrase of that passage: Pardon them; if thou dost not pardon them, turn upon me the punishment destined for them, that is, as Moses elsewhere says, kill me, Num 11:15. It is therefore the book of temporal life, as distinguished from that of eternal life, according to the point of view, economy, and style of the Old Testament; comp. Exo 33:3; Exo 33:5. The book of temporal life is intended in Psa 139:16.- , I myself) construe these words with to be [were].- , to be accursed) It will be enough to compare this passage with Gal 3:13, where Christ is said to have been made a curse for us. The meaning is, I could have wished to bring the misery of the Jews on my own head, and to be in their place. The Jews, rejecting the faith, were accursed from Christ; comp. Gal 1:8-9; Gal 5:4. Whether he would have wished only the deprivation of all good, and his own destruction, and annihilation, or the suffering also of every evil, and that too both in body and in soul, and for ever, or whether, in the very excitement [paroxysm] of that prayer, he had the matter fully present before his understanding, who knows whether Paul himself, had he been questioned, would have been able exactly to define? At least that word [Ego] I [all thought of self] was entirely suppressed in him; he was looking only to others, for the sake of the Divine glory; comp. 2Co 12:15. From the loftiest pinnacle of faith (chap. 8) he now shows the highest degree of love, which was kindled by the Divine love. The thing, which he had wished, could not have been done, but his prayer was pious and solid, although under the tacit condition, if it were possible to be done; comp. Rom 8:38, I am persuaded; Exo 32:33.- , from Christ) So from 1Co 1:30; or, as Christ, being made a curse, was abandoned by the Father; so Paul, filled with Christ, wished in place of the Jews to be forsaken by Christ, as if he had been accursed. He is not speaking of excommunication from the everlasting society of the church. There is a difference between these two things, for , curse, has the greater force of the two, and implies something more absolute: , anathema, something relative, Gal 1:8-9, 1Co 16:22, the former is rather more severe, the latter milder; the former expresses the power of reconciliation by the cross of Christ; the latter is more suitable to [more applicable as regards] Paul; nor can the one be substituted for the other, either here, or in the passages quoted.-) The apostle is speaking of the whole multitude, not of individuals.- , for my brethren) This expresses the cause of his so great love toward them.- , my kinsmen according to the flesh) This expresses the cause of his prayer, showing why the prayer, other things being supposed to be equal [cteris paribus, supposing there were no objection on other grounds], was right; and by adding kinsmen, he shows that the word brethren is not to be understood, as it usually is, of Christians, but of the Jews. Christ was made a curse for us, because we were his kinsmen.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 9:3
Rom 9:3
For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ-It is not possible that Paul really desired to be accursed from God to save the Jewish people, had it been possible for this to save them. The mother sometimes in anguish for the loss of a child says: O, I could die to save my child! She does not mean that she really desires to do this; but if she were led only by her feeling of love for her child, she would give her life for it. But there are other considerations that hinder her willingness to do this. There are other children and dear ones to live for. The obligations she is under to her friends and to God and to herself hinder the doing what the love for the child alone made her feel she would do. So, were Paul to act from his intense love for his Jewish brethren alone, it would prompt him to give up Christ himself, if thereby he could save them. But there are other considerations that would hinder his acting on these, even if that would save them (which it would not). Paul was expressing the intensity of his love for them.
for my brethrens sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh:-[Notice the tender way in which the apostle characterizes the Jews. His sorrow for them had its basis in the fact that apart from Christ they were exposed to the wrath of God and on the road to eternal death. It was this grief at the loss of men, this intense yearning for their salvation, that made Paul the preacher that he was.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Anathema from Christ
For I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethrens sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh.Rom 9:3.
1. Those who have ever thought of these words at all must have thought of them with amazement. I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ. Anathemathat which is put under the ban and irrevocably devoted to destruction. Terrible enough would have been that word anathema, accursed from Christ, if it had brought with it only the thoughts which a Jewish reader would have associated with it. To come under all the curses, dark and dread, which were written in the Book of the Law; to be cursed in waking and sleeping, going out and coming in, in buying and selling, in the city and in the field; to be shunned as a leper was shunned, hated as a Samaritan was hated, shut out from fellowship with all human society that had been most prized, from all kindly greeting of friends and neighboursthis was what he would have connected with the words as their least and lowest meaning.
The Christian reader, possibly the Jewish also, would have gone yet further. The Apostles own words would have taught him to see more. To be delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh; to come under sharp pain of body, supernaturally inflicted, and to feel that excruciating agony, or loathsome plague, was the deserved chastisement of a sin against truth and light; to be shut out from all visible fellowship with the body of Christ, and therefore from all communion with Christ Himself; to be as in the outer darkness while the guests were feasting in the illumined chamber, here too to be shunned by those who had been friends and brothersthis would have been the Christian thought as to excommunication in the apostolic age.
But beyond all this the Apostle found a deeper gulf, a more terrible sentence. To be anathema from Christ, cut off for ever from that eternal life which he had known as the truest and highest blessedness, sentenced for ever to that outer darkness, the wailing and gnashing of teeththis was what he had prayed for, if it might have for its result the salvation of his brethren. He had but just asked triumphantly, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Now he is prepared, for that reward, if it were so possible, to separate himself.
2. But we must be careful not to treat the language of feeling as if it were that of reasoning and reflexion. St. Paul has proved that without Christ all men are lost, and lost hopelessly. He turns to show the abounding love of God, who in His Son has opened a way of salvation for all. He strives to express the magnitude of that salvation. Carried beyond himself, he breaks forth into the grandest of all his doxologies: I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Borne far beyond the present, and now bathed in the light of the Eternal love, he remembers the unutterable loss of those who will not go with him. Must he leave his people in their darkness? The thought wrings his heart. A counter-wave of horror rushes over him. It sweeps him from Hermon into Gethsemane. Never before, perhaps, has he approached so near the mind of Him who wept over His countrymen, crying, O Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, and ye would not!
His father, his mothergreat Israel, with all its faults the noblest race the earth has seen; to whom first the promises were given, first the glory was offered; stem of which Christ Himself had comethese Israelites alone of all the world he sees rejecting the worlds Saviour. The Masters own parable is in his brain. The great day is near, has come. He sees the chosen people, his own people, upon the left hand. He hears the words, Depart from me, ye cursed! That he sees, that he hears. For the instant he sees no more, hears no more. He cannot reason, he can only feel. My brethren are doomed! My brethren are lost! Love shrieks while reason reels: Save them! Send me away, but save them! I am one, they are many. In such a moment come the words: I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethrens sake, whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.
An inferior, self-conscious spirit could not have spoken as St. Paul spoke. St. Paul himself could speak thus only when the unutterable vision had fused his soul and burned away its dross. The nearest approach to this glowing utterance was made by Moses when he too had been closeted with God, had talked with God as a man talketh with his friend, had caught enough of the Divine spirit to think of others more than of himself. Then for an instant he forgot who had taught him to love and to sacrifice; for that instant he fancied he loved men more than God loved them, and exclaimed in substance, If thou wilt not forgive them, blot me, I pray thee, out of the book which thou hast written. Moses had left the Divine presence but a little moment when he lost power to speak such words. Spoken deliberately, they would be blasphemy. Spoken in the supreme moment when the heaven-kindled heart melts the fetters of the intellect, they are doxologies. If we picture God in the image of a small-souled, jealous lover, of course we shall count such language blasphemous. If we remember that God is God, it will seem prayer.
When John Knox cried in an agony, Give me Scotland or I die! was he not setting his will against the Eternal? Was it not his business to live and work willingly, though it should not be Gods purpose to give him Scotland? Reason and reflexion are ready to answer Yes! What God Himself thought of John Knoxs prayer we may read in the way He answered it.
I like a bit of hyperbole in our hymns; for instance, I admire the extravagance of that verse of Addisons
But O eternitys too short
To utter all Thy praise!
A gentleman said to me, That cannot be, because eternity cannot be too short for anything. If the Lord had put a drop of poetry into that critics nature he would not have dealt so hardly with the poets language; and if the same Lord had put a little of the fire of grace into the nature of some hard-headed commentators, they would have understood that this passage is not meant to be cut to pieces and discussed, but is intended to be taken boiling hot and poured upon the enemy, after the fashion of the olden times, when they poured melted lead or boiling pitch upon the besiegers who wished to take a tower or city. Such a text as this must be fired off red-hot; it spoils if it cools. It is a heart business, not a head business.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
It will be our wisdom not to criticize the words, but to catch such gleams as we may of the spirit that shines through them. The text is a statement not of fact but of feeling. We will look at it first as it represents the mind of St. Paul the Christian, second as it represents the feeling of St. Paul the Patriot, and lastly as it represents the spirit of St. Paul the Preacher.
I
The Mind of the Christian
St. Paul had caught himself praying that he might be anathema from Christ for his brethrens sake. In his prayer he is looking at his countrymen from the Christian standpoint. It is not their bodies but their souls that he longs for. Over them he agonizes and feels as though no sacrifice would be too great for him to make if thereby he could secure their salvation. True, St. Pauls wish is checked, arrested in his heart; in thought, as in expression, it is imperfect; his feeling that it could not be realized keeps it from completion; so that probably there never rose before him those tremendous conditions and consequences of its fulfilment which have perplexed the critics of his words. But he cannot mean less than this: that as he thought of those with whom in Gods providence he was united by the bonds of a common kindred, and history, and nationality, and hope; as he saw them spurning their own peace, belying their true life, and falling out from that great Godward movement of mankind which they had been called and trained and singled out to lead; and as this sight, in all the pity of it, reached in him those deep capacities of joy and pain which are the strength of a mans wider life, he felt as if no fulness or intensity or purity of personal delight could be too much for him to part with, even for ever and ever, if it were conceivable, that so his people might be brought into the peace of God through the knowledge and the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. As some have dared to die for the sake of their country, I as others for the common good have borne the parting of friends, the loss of fame and work and happiness, the taunts of inconsistency or cowardice, so to St. Paul even the everlasting joy that passes mans understanding, even the communion that is beyond all human love, seem less decisive in their control over his desires than the thought of all his nation turning from their blindness and rebellion to adore the Saviour they had crucified, and to find rest for ever in the love they had despised.
1. St. Paul had not this spirit of himself, nor do we have it of ourselves. He was animated by the spirit of God and of Christ.
(1) God is zealous for the redemption of souls. He clad Himself with zeal as with a cloak. God so loved the world, with such exceeding might and weight of love,pure love, undeserved love, love which had and could have no return,that He gave, not angels, not worlds, not adopted or created sons, but His only begotten co-equal Son to death, that man might live.
(2) And who can speak of the spirit of Christthe spirit of Him who became as one of us, who dwelt eternally in the bosom of His Fathers love, and thence, from His royal throne, came to take the sinful infirmities of our human nature? Throughout His earthly life He commanded winds, seas, the dead, and they obeyed Him; His creative Word passed upon the bread and it was multiplied. He died only because He willed; He rose when He willed. But for us and for our salvation He willed all His life long to suffer. Such was His zeal for souls, that they said of Him, He is beside himself. He had the same zeal for a single soul as for His whole people. He beheld and loved each single soul with an undivided love. He loved one soul with the same love as the whole human race. The conversion of one sinful, disordered woman is to Him meat and drink. One lost sheep, one prodigal, one son who repented and did his Fathers will, which he had insolently refused, pictures at once each single soul and all for whom He died. Each one He lays on His shoulders, and bears to His home, the heavenly courts. He falls on the neck of each single penitent, and gives him the kiss of peace. Each returned sinner, who at last does His will, He owns as having ever done it. During life, He was straitened until His Baptism in His own blood was accomplished. His love was pent in, as it were, His spirit was held in, confined, pressed together, not allowed to expand itself, as it would, in love, until that awful hour, when, rejected by those whom He came to save, He seemed to be forsaken by God also.1 [Note: E. B. Pusey.]
2. St. Pauls spirit was not that of a beginner in the Christian faith.A mans religion, like most else within him, often begins in selfishness. If it is true religion, it cannot end in selfishness. The child sees in his mother at first only the reservoir of food and comfort. He seeks her bosom for his own sake. By and by he will love her in another way. Not what he can gain from her, but what he can do for her, then becomes his quest. What must I do to be saved?that is often the sinners first cry. Religion is a fleet of life-boats: leap into them, cut away from the sinking vessel, row hard each for himself! What must I do to be saved? With that cry the sinner may come to Christ. But if he tarries with Jesus the cry will change into, What may I do to save?
Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
But God will bring him where the Blessed are.2 [Note: Henry Van Dyke.]
3. Such a spirit knows the joy of the Lord.St. Paul himself, at the very moment when he prayed that he might be accursed from Christ, was entering more fully into the joy of his Lord than he had ever done before, because then, more than ever, that mind was in him which was also in Christ Jesus. As the Master did not count equality with God a thing to be snatched at as a prize, but emptied himself even of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, of the conscious energy of the Divine attributes, so did the servant count that the glory yet to be revealed was not a prize for himself, was content, even while he pressed forward to the mark of his high calling, to forgo even that, and to empty himself also of the blessings of the adoption and the promises. And therefore the joy of the servant also, like that of the Master, was unspeakable and full of glory. As the heart knew its own bitterness, the bitterness of that self-surrender, so there was a joy with which the stranger did not intermeddle.
When Bishop Hannington was only a curate in Devonshire, he gave himself to Christ, and was at length able to write, I know now that Jesus Christ died for me, and that He is mine, and I am His. He had surrendered himself wholly to Christ. I am His. Now look at the love that broadened and deepened in the self-surrendered soul. In 1882 he started from the coast of Africa for the interior. He was beset with difficulties, but the love within him was unmoved. On the first of August he wrote the beautiful, triumphant words, I am very happy. Fever is trying, but it does not take away the joy of the Lord, and keeps me low in the right place.1 [Note: J. A. Clapperton.]
The Joy of Christ in His Sacrifice was the joy of man under conditions of heroic unselfishness. The Joy which was set before Him in His Sacrifice was in part this: that He perceived with the delight of heroic unselfishness how His sufferings were preparing Him an access into human hearts, an avenue to their deepest confidence. To one who deeply loves humanity, whose passion is the passion of helpfulness, there are moments when suffering, whether of mind or of body, seems worth all it costs, because of the added power that comes through it to understand those who suffer, and to gain their confidence. Though we may have known hours of darkness, hours of humiliation, hours when the burden of living seemed greater than we could bear, who regrets the sufferings of those hours, if, by means of them, we learned to read the secret of humanitys sorrow in a way that fitted us to meet humanitys need?2 [Note: C. C. Hall.]
A touching legend of filial piety has connected itself with one of the great bells in a temple near Peking. A famous worker in metals, it is said, had received the Emperors command to cast a bell of unusual size, the tone of which was to surpass in richness and melody all other bells. Severe penalties were threatened if he came short of the wishes of his exacting master. He tried and failed, tried and failed again, and was upon the point of giving up his task in despair. At this crisis in his fortunes, his only daughter, a maiden of great beauty and virtue, went secretly to consult an astrologer. The man of magic told her the work could be brought to a successful accomplishment only if the blood of a chaste virgin were mingled with the molten metal, when it was ready to be poured into the mould. Returning home she asked leave to watch her fathers work, and when the ingredients had been fused and were seething in the vast cauldron, in an outburst of filial piety she threw herself into the sea of fire. The bell thus cast proved of incomparable quality, and whenever it is struck, the natives of the district think they hear the girls dying cry, in the sweetness and pathos of its notes. Such filial piety, if achieved at all, could only be achieved through struggle and consummated in dire distress. The legend represents the last cry of the victim as a weird note of pain, a vox humana trembling up out of inscrutable abysses of tribulation. The Chinese imagination had scarcely soared into those spiritual realms where Divine love can change pain into contentment and deep joy.1 [Note: T. G. Selby.]
II
The Feeling of the Patriot
No sacrifice, St. Paul felt, was too great for him to makefor whom? For my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. All Christian believers were his brethren spiritually, but it was the Jews who were his brethren by natural relationship. So let us look at St. Pauls words as they express his patriotic spirithis love for his fellow-countrymen and his fatherland. He has just finished his glowing description of the position and prospects of the elect people of God. And then, by contrast, the misery of the outcast people once called electhis own peoplewrings his heart with pain. The very idea that in his new enthusiasm for the Catholic Church he can be supposed to be forgetting those who are of his own flesh and blood, stirs him to a profound protest. He solemnly asseverates that the pain which Israels rejection causes him is acute and continuous. He has caught himself at the point of praying to be himself an outcast from Christ, if so be he could bring the people of his own kindred and blood into the Church.
For who indeed could seem to have so good a title to be there? They are the Israelitesthat is, Gods own people; the eye of God was so specially upon this race that He redeemed it and made it His own son; to them was vouchsafed the shining of His continual presence in the Tabernacle; to them, in the persons of the patriarchs and of Moses, God gave special covenants, that is to say, pledged His word to them in an unmistakable manner and repeatedly that He should be their God and they should be His people; thus in pursuance of a Divine purpose they were brought under the education of the Divinely given law and ritual worship; and all this with direct and repeated promises of a more glorious position in the future to be brought about by the Divine king, the Christ who was to be. To them, finally, belongs all the sanctity which can attach to a people from having numbered among its members the holy ones of God; for of this race were the patriarchs, the friends of God; and of this race, so far as human birth is concerned, came in fact the Christ who, born a Jew, is Sovereign of the universe and ever-blessed God. Surely then, St. Paul implies, that this race, now that the Christ they were expecting is at last come, now that the goal of all Gods dealings with them is at last reached, should have fallen outside the circle of His people and should be no longer sharers in the sonship or the election would seem a result too monstrous to contemplate. The contrast between what they were and were intended for and what in present circumstances they are is indeed appalling.
1. Patriotism is not a Christian virtue.It is not like humility, or meekness, or patient cross-bearing, which were not virtues at all till Jesus made them so. Much of the noblest patriotism that the world has known has been witnessed in countries that knew nothing of Christ Jesus: the love of country, like a mothers love for her children, blossomed and fruited long before Christ was born. The tale of Thermopyl is not a Christian tale, yet as an instance of patriotism it is well-nigh peerless. The most famous line in literature about dying for ones country was written by a Roman and a pagan. The Greeks were all patriots; so are the Japanese. Long before Christ was born, and far beyond Christendom, the love of country has been powerful.
Danton the Titan rises in this hour, as always in the hour of need. Great is his voice, reverberating from the domes: Citizen-Representatives, shall we not, in such crisis of Fate, lay aside discords? Reputation: O what is the reputation of this man or of that? Que mon nom soit fltri: que la France soit libre: Let my name be blighted: Let France be free!1 [Note: Carlyle, French Revolution, iii. 134.]
During the Russo-Japanese War a Japanese officer wrote a letter to some friends in England. It was a very calm and business-like epistle, with little trace of sentiment. But after the signature, in true Western fashion, was a postscript, and in the postscript, as occasionally happens, was the news, for it said, P.S.I have just been ordered to the front, where it will be a pleasure to die for my country. I wish all postscripts from our Christian homes were as instinct with magnificent sentiment as that. A duty? A stern necessity? Even that would have been something; but a pleasure to die!1 [Note: G. H. Morrison.]
I must be gone to the crowd untold
Of men by the cause which they served unknown,
Who moulder in myriad graves of old;
Never a story and never a stone
Tells of the martyrs who died like me,
Just for the pride of the old countree.2 [Note: Sir Alfred Lyall.]
2. But patriotism may be Christian patriotism.Just as the sunshine falling on the trees kindles them into unsuspected splendours, and just as the love of the mother for her child has been ennobled and transfigured by Christ Jesus, so the love of ones country, which is a common heritage implanted in the natural heart by God, has been touched into new glory by Christ Jesus.
If I were attempting a survey of the whole field of the literature of patriotism, the very first book to which I should need to ask your attention would be our sacred Scriptures; for nowhere will you find a more intense patriotism than glows in the words of some of its psalmists and prophets. And in New Testament times, when the Jewish nation had fallen upon evil days, even those who knew that her ancient glory had departed for ever still clung to her with passionate longing. Paul could wish that he himself were anathema from Christ for his brethrens sake, his kinsmen according to the flesh. And who can forget Christs reverence for the great names in Jewish history, His observance of His nations customs, His tears over the doomed city of Jerusalem? Did He not say that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? And when He sent forth His disciples on their world-wide mission did He not charge them to begin at Jerusalem? He who says that Christianity kills patriotism has misunderstood either one or the other or both.3 [Note: George Jackson, A Young Mans Bookshelf, 132.]
(1) Let us look first of all at Jesus Christ the Patriot, and let us remember that though the patriotism of Jesus be obscured by His world-wide mission and His care for single souls, there has never moved across this earth a truer patriot than the prophet of Nazareth at whose feet we bow. He was a Jew after the flesh, and that is enough. With all the passion of a Jew He loved His country. We shall never understand Christs hatred of the Pharisees, nor shall we ever comprehend His tears over Jerusalem, unless we remember that the lover of mankind was also a lover of His little country. Patriotism is never so strong as when the country that inspires it is a little one. Britain is little, Switzerland is little, Japan is little, Palestine was little; and these are the countries, perhaps above all others, where love of the homeland has been supreme. Into that heritage, then, Christ Jesus entered. He was a prophet; He was the son of David. The past was alive for Him, and the hills and the lakes were deartwice dear because consecrated with such holy memories.
Is it not a patriot of whom we read that when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes? Is there not deep love of country in the cry, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not? It is a disappointed patriot who, when He finds a stranger ready to recognize in the Man of Sorrows the conqueror of disease and death, exclaims, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. In all the labour of Jesus Christ there seems to be a yearning desire that the Jewish people should be His fellow-workers, and it is only when He finds them determinedly opposed to Him that He goes to the Gentiles. It is hardly too much to say that we have evidence of the longing of the Founder of our faith that those of His own nation should be the missioners to the outside world. Few sharper pangs can have been felt by our Master than that one, to which the prophet had beforehand testified as one of the sufferings of the Messiah: We hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not; and to which reference is made by St. John in the first chapter of his Gospel, He came unto his own, and his own received him not.1 [Note: H. R. Wakefield.]
What is great in patriotism comes not from the love of ones own country to the exclusion of others, but from the forgetfulness of ones own self in the possession of a larger idea of humanity. Christ as a patriot would have been adored by the Jews, and probably recognized as the Messiah. They hated Him because He loved the Gentile.1 [Note: Lord Houghton, Life, ii. 492.]
(2) Let us look at St. Pauls patriotismthat is, at Christian patriotism, as distinguished from all other. Christian patriotism concerns itself with the moral and the spiritual rather than the physical and the external. It can never be enough for a Christian citizen that each census gives a larger population than the last, that the Savings Banks are congested with money, that the volume of trade is swollen, that the rate of wages is rising, that the arms of the country have prevailed over foreign foes, or that we have annexed another province. For he knows that a land may be populous, and rich, and strong, and feared, whose people are miserable, and whose dependencies are spoiled. He has been taught that a nation is blessed only when its homes are full of peace and its power is used for righteousness. Patriotism must labour for the good of all and the injury of none, to build up a nation in faith towards God and love towards man. Jesus warned His contemporaries that if they persisted in their unreasoning fanaticism, the end would be a bath of blood; and can any one doubt that if the Jews had listened to His voice they would have possessed their own land to-day, and their glory have had no shadow?
He who does not desire the salvation of those who are his own kith and kinhow dwelleth the love of God in him? Christianity is expansive, it makes the bosom glow with love to all that God has made; but, at the same time, our love does not expand so as to lose force; and this is seen when it turns its power towards those who are nearest home. Are our neighbours unsaved? Let us lay them on our heart and cease not to plead till they are in Christ. Think much of the heathen; by all means regard India and China, and the like, but do not forget Newington Butts, and Lambeth, and Southwark. Next to our homes let our neighbourhoods be considered, and then our country, for all Englishmen are akin. Wherever we wander we are proud of our common country, and, like the Romans of old, we are somewhat quick to make known our citizenship; therefore, let us never cease to plead for this beloved island and our kinsmen according to the flesh. For his countrymen St. Paul prayed; and never let us bear within our bones a soul so deaf as to forget our native land.1 [Note: C. H. Spurgeon.]
(3) Christian patriotism recognizes that the worst enemies of a people are their sins. Christ would have said of countries what St. Paul said of himself, We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness. To the average Jew the great enemy was Rome, for Rome had enslaved Palestine. To the average Jew the first task of a true patriot was to hurl defiance at that intruding power. It is very significant and very strange that no such defiance fell from the lips of Jesus. How men would have hailed Him had He cried, Woe unto you, ye Romans! With His gifts and His eloquence and His Davidic birth, He would have been the hero of the people. But He never cried, Woe unto you, ye Romans; He cried, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees. That, too, was the cry of a patriot, but it brought the patriot to Calvary. For it means that in the eyes of Jesus Christ there are worse enemies than spears and swords; there are national foes that can be far more deadly than the battalions of an invading army. In the long-run, if any nation perishes, it is not anothers guns, it is its own sins, that ruin it. Christ taught that by His life. Christ sealed that by His death.
It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the worlds praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, with pomp of waters, unwithstood,
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever. In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.In every thing we are sprung
Of Earths first blood, have titles manifold.2 [Note: Wordsworth.]
Ruskin had to my mind one distinguishing mark of the true prophetthat he was no patriot. He was concerned with human rather than with national welfare. I am not decrying the force of patriotism, or the part it plays in the development of the human race. But there is a nobler enthusiasm than even the enthusiasm for race and nation; because the triumph of patriotism must necessarily carry with it the quenching of the aspirations of other nations, their defeat and their discomfiture. It is only tyranny on a larger scale. Ruskin no doubt miscalculated and misunderstood the nature of his countrymen, the insularity and the isolation which mark their conquering path. But no one who cares for the larger hopes of humanity can hope or dream that the end is to be limited by national greatness. That is not a popular vision in England, unless it is accompanied by a proviso that the seat of the federated government of the world shall be in London, and that English shall be the language of the human race. But Ruskin judged other nations not according to their resemblance to our own race, but by their virtue and nobility.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Ruskin: A Study in Personality, 221.]
Once Babylon, by beauty tenanted
In pleasure palaces and walks of pride,
Like a great scarlet flower reared her head,
Drank in the sun and laughed and sinned and died.2 [Note: Richard Burton.]
III
The Spirit of the Preacher
Let us now look at the text as it manifests the true spirit of the preacher.
1. St. Paul the Preacher.Some one has pointed out the striking contrast between the dominant interest with which St. Paul says, I must also see Rome, and that which the words would ordinarily reveal. The Apostle was eager to visit the imperial city only because he was eager to preach there also the Gospel of Christ. Every other ambition of his life had passed into this. All the waters of his soul had gathered themselves into one mighty flood to be poured through the narrows of this single purpose: To preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which from all ages hath been hid in God who created all things. The urgency of his message burned like a fire in his bones; his passion to win men was like a Divine constraint which gave him no rest.
2. The passion for souls, the spirit of true preaching.Is not this passion to win men the very heart of preaching? It is the ultimate fountain of the prophetic preaching, the secret of both the pathos and the splendours of its style. To the prophets preaching was no mere display, but a sore battle with the hard hearts of their contemporaries, in which the messenger of the Lord worked with the pity of his weakness upon him, at a supreme cost to himself and conscious that he must summon to his desperate task every resource of feeling and of art.
It must be a passion: a fire burning with the steady flame of anthracite fed by a constant stream of oil. If it be less we will be swept off our feet by the tides all around, or sucked under by their swift current. And many a splendid man to-day is being swept off his feet and sucked under by the tides and currents of life because no such passion as this is mooring and steadying and driving his whole life. It must be a passion for winning men; not driving or dragging, but drawing. Not argument or coercion, but warm winsome wooing. To-day the sun up yonder is drawing up toward itself thousands of tons weight of water. Nobody sees it going, except perhaps in very small part. There is no noise or dust. But the water rises up irresistibly toward the sun because of the winning power in the sun for the water. It must be something like that in the higher spherewinsomeness in us will win men to us, and through us to the master.1 [Note: S. D. Gordon.]
Whitefields favourite maxim was that a preacher, whenever he entered the pulpit, should look upon it as the last time he might preach, and the last time his people might hear. Or, take Wesleys Journal. There is hardly any book like it, says Dr. Robertson Nicoll; its shrewdness, its wit, its wisdom, its knowledge are bordered with a pale edge of firethe spiritual passion of the great apostles soul. Let one revealing sentence speak for the whole book. In 1742 Wesley visited Newcastle-on-Tyne for the first time. Never, he says, had he witnessed so much drunkenness, cursing and swearing, from the mouths of little children as well as of adults, in so short time. Surely, he writes, this place is ripe forwhat? judgment? no, butfor Him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.1 [Note: G. Jackson.]
3. The inspiration of this passion.This passion for souls is the true apostolic spirit of preaching; and, be it remembered, it springs only from the true apostolic faith and experience. No man can know this vehement fervour of desire to win men for Christ who is not himself wholly swayed by that faith, and in whose soul that great experience has never repeated itself. God give to us preachers, said one the other day, a perpetual sense of glad, wonderful surprise at our own salvation. And when that prayer is answered, and we who preach preach as Brownlow North was sometimes said to preachlike one who had just escaped from a sacked and burning city, his ear still stung with the yell of the dying and the roar of the flame, his heart full of gratitude at the thought of his own wonderful escapedeaf ears will be unstopped and dead souls raised to life.
The great actor, Garrick, was asked by a clergyman why the stage seemed to have more power than the pulpit. This was his answer: Too many preach truth as if it were fiction; we act fiction as if it were truth.2 [Note: Francis Pigou, Odds and Ends, 153.]
With grief his head was bowd low,
His heart, that heart so dear to me.
Give him Thy light, O God, I cried,
(I love him so: I love him so.)
Give him Thy light, whateer betide,
Let all the shadow fall on me:
And if my spirit faileth so,
Then let me die. (Lord, Thou hast died.)
It may not be.
Since sorrow is our lot below
I bow my head to Thy decree.
In darkness, then, let me abide,
(I love him so: I love him so.)
I will not fail although the tide
In whelming flood pass over me:
Let me but share his cross of woe.
(They pierced Thy feet and hands and side.)
It may not be.
Through the dread darkness must he go
Alone? Ah God, the agony
To see a soul made white and tried,
(I love him so: I love him so.)
To see a spirit purified
By Thy pure fires!I ask of Thee
But this one gifta heart to know
Thy loveto trust Thy mercy wide
For himfor me.1 [Note: Margaret Blaikie, Songs by the Way, 26.]
Anathema from Christ
Literature
Clapperton (J. A.), Culture of the Christian Heart, 65.
Hall (C. C.), The Gospel of Divine Sacrifice, 131.
Jackson (G.), Memoranda Paulina, 154.
Kendrick (A. C.), The Moral Conflict of Humanity, 211.
Morrison (G. H.), The Unlighted Lustre, 96.
Paget (F.), Studies in the Christian Character, 199.
Plumptre (E. H.), Theology and Life, 30.
Pusey (E. B.), Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, 257.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxiv. (1878), No. 1425.
Wakefield (H. R.), in A Lent in London, 51.
Wright (W. B.), The World to Come, 209.
Christian World Pulpit, xxxi. 409 (Wickham); li. 273 (Fairbairn).
Preachers Magazine, v. (1894), 115 (Gregory); xii. (1901), 539 (Champness).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
I could: Exo 32:32
were: Deu 21:23, Jos 6:17, Jos 6:18, 1Sa 14:24, 1Sa 14:44, Gal 1:8, Gal 3:10, Gal 3:13
accursed: or, separated
my kinsmen: Rom 11:1, Gen 29:14, Est 8:6, Act 7:23-26, Act 13:26
Reciprocal: Gen 44:33 – I pray thee Exo 32:30 – an atonement Lev 27:28 – no devoted Jdg 17:2 – cursedst 1Sa 15:35 – Samuel mourned 2Ki 22:19 – wept 1Ch 21:17 – let thine Est 10:3 – seeking Psa 119:136 – General Isa 61:9 – their seed Jer 4:19 – My bowels Dan 7:15 – was grieved Zec 11:10 – Beauty Mat 26:74 – began Luk 19:41 – and wept Joh 11:35 – General Joh 13:21 – he was Act 2:36 – all Act 22:5 – the brethren Act 23:21 – an oath Rom 7:1 – brethren Rom 8:3 – in the Rom 11:14 – my 1Co 10:18 – Israel 1Co 16:22 – Anathema 2Co 2:4 – out Gal 4:15 – if Heb 12:9 – fathers
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
9:3
Romans 9:3. Paul had said so much in criticism of his Jewish brethren that some might think it was prompted by a personal grudge against them. To offset such an impression, he refers to evidences of the past that showed his personal love for them. I could wish is all from EUCHOMAI. The Englishman’s Greek New Testament translates it, “I was wishing,” thus putting it in the past tense as it should be. It is just another expression in Paul’s effort to show his Jewish kinsmen how devoted he had been to their interests. (See the comments on the preceding paragraph, also the passage in Act 26:9-10.) Accursed means to be separated from Christ–having nothing to do with him except to oppose him as shown in the passage cited in Acts.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 9:3. For I could wish that I myself, etc. The order of the better established reading makes accursed (lit., anathema) more emphatic, and forbids our taking I myself as the subject of could wish, which was grammatically possible with the order of the common reading.
The Greek verb rendered could wish is in the imperfect tense, and might mean was wishing; but the same tense is constantly used of what is termed arrested action. The latter sense is preferable here. (1.) The other view would seem to require I myself as subject of was wishing. (2.) The reference to the past makes an anti-climax, or at best a common place sense: if the past wish were before his conversion, referring to his blind zeal for Israel against Christ, then the terms are strangely chosen to express that sense; to explain the wish as a past one, but occurring since his conversion, is open to all the objections that are urged against the common view, without having the same reasons in its favor. We therefore accept the obvious meaning: I could wish that I myself were devoted to destruction from Christ for the sake of my brethren, etc. The implication is that the wish was not formed, either because it was impossible thus to wish, or, because the wish could not be fulfilled, or, both. The Apostle, however, is not using a hyperbole, nor is his language a senseless straining of the idea of self denial. The objective impossibility did not destroy or diminish the subjective intensity of Pauls feeling, which thus seeks expression. This feeling, too, is most akin to the self-sacrificing love of the Lord he preached. Comp. the language of Moses (Exo 32:32). There is no wish to be separated from the holy will of Christwhich would be wickedbut only from the enjoyment of Christ, temporarily, as Christ Himself, on the cross, was separated from the enjoyment of His Fathers presence, when He cried: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. And it detracts nothing from our estimate of Pauls affection to know, as he did, that the very feeling he expresses was the result of Christs love to him, and would be impossible were he sundered from fellowship with Christ. It is the expression of an affectionate and self-denying heart, willing to surrender all thingseven, if it might be so, eternal glory itselfif thereby he could obtain for his beloved people those blessings of the gospel which he now enjoyed, but from which they were excluded. Others express their love by professing themselves ready to give their life for their friends: he declares the intensity of his affection by reckoning even his spiritual life not too great a price, if it might purchase their salvation (Alford). It is not implied that this is the constant and conscious state of every Christian, still less that our salvation depends upon our attaining to such a height of disinterested affection.
Accursed, lit., anathema. This word, which occurs several times in the New Testament, as well as in the Septuagint, is the Hellenistic form of a word, originally meaning dedicated to God. Cut as a rule, this form in the Bible denotes something dedicated to God in a bad sense. There is little reason to doubt that in the New Testament (see references) the word has the uniform sense of having become obnoxious to the wrath or curse of God. Efforts have been made to prove that anathema, in the time of Paul, meant only Jewish excommunication. Others have explained it of banishment from church fellowship; some, of temporal death. But the idea of excommunication was first attached to this term in later times, and this sense is altogether inappropriate in the other New Testament passages where the word occurs, and to our mind unsatisfactory here also. The notion of temporal death is entirely foreign to usage. These remarks hold good in regard to the corresponding verb, which is found several times in the New Testament. Wieseler, after a full investigation (see his Galatians, Gal 1:8; comp. Lange, Romans, pp. 302-304), says: Anathema, in entire congruity with the Old Testament cherem, is used of a person who is dedicated to God, subjected to the Divine curse for his death, not, however, to bodily death, as in the more ancient formula (this reference, however, being not necessarily contained in the root, but resulting only from the historical relations of the Jews in ancient times), but to spiritual and eternal death.
From Christ. Separated from Christ, from the fellowship with Him.
For the sake of my brethren. Not, instead of, which the preposition, of itself, does not mean, but for their benefit, just as the same term is used in Eph 3:13, Col 1:24 to indicate that Pauls sufferings might result advantageously for others.
My kinsmen according to the flesh. Notice the tender way in which the Apostle characterizes the Jews. But the phrase suggests as its antithesis brethren in the Lord. Pauls patriotism grew out of the human consanguinity, but as the following description shows, has its deepest ground in the gracious gifts and religious privileges hitherto possessed by his countrymen.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
That is, “So great is my concern for the salvation of my brethren the Jews, that I could undergo the greatest misery and evil that can befall myself, to prevent their destruction.”
This wish of St. Paul is plainly an hyperbolical expression of his great affection to his countrymen the Jews, and his zeal for their salvation, which was so intense and vehement, that were it a thing reasonable and lawful, were it proper, and could avail to the procuring their salvation, he could have wished the greatest evil to himself; for their sakes, not only to be excommunicated from communion with the church of Christ, but to be separated from Christ himself.
If it be said, that such a wish is sinful and unnatural, to desire the salvation of others, with our own damnation; I answer, True: And therefore the apostle’s words are not an absolute and positive wish: He doth not say, I wish; but, I could wish: Just as we are wont to say, when we would express a thing to the height, which is not fit nor intended to be done by us; “I could wish so or so: I could even be content to do this or that.”
Which kind of expressions no man takes for a strict and precise declaration of our minds, but for figurative expressions of a very great vehement passion. Thus here, the apostle says not, I wish, but I could even wish. Were it proper to make such a wish, I could even wish so great a blessing to my brethren, though with the loss of my own happiness.
Hence learn, 1. That it is neither lawful nor reasonable for any man to renounce his own eternal salvation, and to be willing to be damned upon any account whatever, be it for the good of the brethren, or for the glory of God himself. The very thought of such a thing is enough to make human nature tremble at its very foundation; for the desire of our own happiness is the deepest principle that God has planted in our natures: And to pretend a reason from the glory of God, is impossible,; because our damnation cannot make for the glory of God, unless by our own impenitency and willful obstinacy, we have deserved damnation.
Learn, 2. That such may be the ardency of a saint’s affection towards others, and so fervent his desires for their conversion and salvation, that he may be willing to sacrifice himself, and all that is dear unto him in this world, for the accomplishing of that end: I could wish I were accursed from Christ for my brethren, &c.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Rom 9:3. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ ( The word , here rendered accursed, answers to the Hebrew word , cherem, which signifies what is devoted to destruction. And, as the Jewish nation was now an anathema, destined to destruction, Mr. Locke supposes that Paul, to express his affection for them, here says that he could wish, provided he could thereby save them from it, to become an anathema, or to be devoted to destruction himself, in their stead. In other words, that he could be content that Christ should give him up to such calamities as these, to which the Jewish people were doomed for rejecting him; so that if they could all be centred in one person, he would be willing they should unite in him, could he thereby be a means of saving his countrymen. This is the interpretation of Dr. Samuel Clarke, (see his Seventeen Sermons, p. 340.) To the same purpose nearly is Goodwins exposition of the passage: It seems, says he, to mean, that he was willing to be looked upon, and in every respect dealt with in the world, as if he were accursed by Christ, and so worthy of all ignominy, punishment, tortures, and death, that could be inflicted on him: such as were wont to be inflicted on persons, who, for some hateful crime, were devoted to utter destruction. The Greek word is indifferently applied either to persons or things, and in Scripture commonly signifies such, in either kind, as were consigned, either by God himself, or men, or both, to destruction, in the nature of piacular sacrifices. Such a sacrifice Paul was willing to become for his brethrens sake, supposing that he could thereby procure deliverance for them from that most heavy curse of an eternal separation from God, which he certainly knew hung over their heads, for their obstinate refusal of the gospel. According to these interpretations, , must be rendered, made an anathema by, or from Christ. But Dr. Waterland observing, as , 2Ti 3:3, signifies, after the example of my forefathers, , in this passage, may signify, after the example of Christ. This exposition is adopted by Dr. Doddridge as the most probable, who thus paraphrases the verse: I could even wish, that as Christ subjected himself to the curse, that he might deliver us from it, so I myself, likewise, were made an anathema after his example; like him exposed to all the execrations of an enraged people, and even to the infamous and accursed death of crucifixion itself, for the sake of my brethren: &c., that they might thereby be delivered from the guilt they have brought upon their own heads, and become entitled to the forfeited and rejected blessings of the Messiahs kingdom. Many commentators have shown how very absurd it would be to suppose the apostle meant, that he could be content to be delivered over to everlasting misery for the good of others. The apostle here mentions his near relation to the Jews, in order that what he had expressed concerning the greatness of his affection for them, might be the more easily believed by them.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
For I could wish [Literally, “I was wishing.” Some therefore regard Paul as referring to his attitude to Christ while he was persecuting the church in the days before his conversion. But Paul is asserting his present love toward Israel, and his past conduct proved nothing whatever as to it. The tense here is the imperfect indicative, and is correctly translated “I could wish,” for it indicates arrested, incomplete action, a something never finished; and it therefore often stands for the conjunctive. This potential or conditional force of the imperfect is, as Alford remarks, “no new discovery, but common enough in every schoolboy’s reading.” Paul means to say that he never actually formed this wish, but could conceive of himself as going to the length of forming it, if admissible–if it were merely a question of love toward his countrymen, and no obstacle intervened] that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren’s sake [The root idea of anathema is anything cut or torn off, anything separated or shut up. In the Old Testament the inanimate thing devoted or anathematized was stored up, while the animate thing was killed (Lev 27:26-29). Compare the anathemas of Jericho and Achan (Jos 6:16; Jos 7:15; Jos 7:22-26). But the New Testament prefers that use of the word which indicates spiritual punishment; viz., exclusion, banishment, as in the case of one resting under a ban (Gal 1:8-9; 1Co 12:3; 1Co 16:22), for Paul certainly ordered no one to be physically put to death. The idea of banishment is, in this case, made even more apparent by the addition of the words “from Christ.” Paul therefore means to say, “I may, indeed, be regarded as an enemy of my people, delighting in their being excluded from salvation by their rejection of the gospel (as they indeed are– Gal 1:8-9; Gal 5:4); but so far am I from doing this that I could, were it permissible, wish for their sakes that I might so exchange places with them that I might be cut off from Christ, and be lost, that they might be joined to him and be saved. For their sakes I could go into eternal perdition to keep them from going there.” Men of prudent self-interest and cold, speculative deliberation regard Paul’s words as so unreasonable that they would pervert them in order to alter their meaning. They forget that Judah offered to become a slave in Benjamin’s stead (Gen 44:18-34); that David wished he had died for Absalom (2Sa 18:33), and that the petition of Moses exceeded this unexpressed wish of the apostle (Exo 32:32). They are blind to the great truth that in instances like this “the foolishness of God” (even operating spiritually in men of God) “is wiser than men” (1Co 1:25). No man can be a propitiation for the souls of other men. Only the Christ can offer himself as a vicarious sacrifice for the lives of others so as to become in their stead a curse (Gal 3:13), abandoned of God (Mar 15:34). But surely the true servant of Christ may so far partake of the Spirit of his Master as to have moments of exalted spiritual grace wherein he could wish, were it permissible, to make the Christlike sacrifice. (Comp. 2Co 12:15; Phi 2:17; 1Th 2:8; 1Jo 3:16) In this instance we may conceive of Paul as ardently contemplating such a wish, for: 1. He had prophetic insight into the age-long and almost universal casting off of the Jews, and their consequent sorrows and distresses, all of which moved him to unusual compassion. 2. He had also spiritual insight into the torments of the damned, which would stir him to superhuman efforts on behalf of his people. 3. He could conceive of the superior honor to Christ if received by the millions of Israel instead of the one, Paul. 4. He could deem it a sweeter joy to Christ to give salvation unto the many, rather than merely unto the one, Paul. 5. He could contrast the joys his exchange might give to the many with the single sorrow of damnation meted out to himself alone, and could therefore feel some satisfaction in contemplating such a sacrifice for such a purpose. (Comp. Heb 12:2) 6. Finally, just before this he has asserted the possibility of one dying for a righteous or good man (Rom 5:7). If such a thing is possible, might not Paul be excused if he felt ready, not only to die, but even to suffer eternal exclusion from Christ, if his act could avail to save a whole covenanted people, so worthy and so loved of God, as Israel was shown to be by those honors and favors bestowed upon it, which he proceeds at once to enumerate? Under all the circumstances, therefore, it is apparent that such strong words and deep emotions are to be expected from one who loved as did Paul. For further evidences of his love toward churches and individuals, see 1Co 1:4; Phi 1:3-4; Eph 1:16; 1Th 1:2; Phm 1:4; 2Ti 1:3-4; 2Co 11:28-29], my kinsmen according to the flesh [And here we have the first impulse for the strong expression of passion just uttered. In the Jew an ardent family affection, blending with an intense national pride, combine to form a patriotism unparalleled in its fervor and devotion]:
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
3. For I could wish that I were a Sin-offering from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kindred according to the flesh. This verse in E. V. has led to the conclusion that Paul was willing to give up his interest in Christ and lose his soul for the salvation of the Jews. That is altogether a mistake. He simply states that he would gladly suffer martyrdom, as Christ had, in order to save them. Accursed, in E. V., is anathema, from ana, upon, and titheemi place. Hence it originally means an offering, and became applied to a sin-offering, in that sense being applied to Christ, who had a perfect right to let him die a martyr to save the Jews, or live to preach the gospel. He here assures us that he would gladly lay down his life for the Jews if Christ should so order.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 3
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ; I should be willing to be sacrificed myself to save them. It would seem to be unnecessary to inquire for any definite and precise meaning to be attached to the phrase, accursed from Christ; for the language was doubtless not intended to present an idea seriously entertained, but only as a strong expression indicating deep anxiety and earnest desire.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
9:3 For I could wish that myself were {a} accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the {b} flesh:
(a) The apostle loved his brethren so completely that if it had been possible he would have been ready to have redeemed the castaways of the Israelites with the loss of his own soul forever: for this word “accursed” signifies as much in this place.
(b) Being brethren by flesh, as from one nation and country.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
"I could wish" introduces a wish that God would not possibly grant (Rom 8:35). Nevertheless it was a sincere wish. Paul had given up many things for the salvation of others (Php 3:8). Moses voiced a similar self-sacrificing wish for the Israelites’ salvation (Exo 32:30-35). Paul’s brethren here were not his spiritual but his racial brothers and sisters. Even though he was "the apostle to the Gentiles" he still took pleasure in being a Jew.