Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Romans 11:36
For of him, and through him, and to him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory forever. Amen.
36. of him ] Lit. out of Him; not in the Pantheistic sense, as if all things were evolved from God phases of God; but in the Christian sense, that His will is the ultimate source of all being, all life and force, all conscience, will, and thought.
through him ] by means of Him. He is not the Source only, but the Means. He did not only originate all things, but incessantly sustains and overrules all. In the special case of the saints, He not only wills their salvation, but through their regenerated will gives them power to believe and persevere. “He keeps them, by His power, through faith, unto salvation.” (1Pe 1:5. See too Php 2:13.)
to him ] To His glory. He is, to Himself, the Final Cause of all His works. He is greater, higher, nobler, and more precious, than His whole creation; and must view Himself as such: what else, then, but Himself could He make His aim and end?
Cp. Col 1:16, for the same words, “through Him and to Him” used of the Eternal Son; one of the deepest proofs of His proper Deity.
to whom be glory ] Lit., to Him [ be ] the glory; the glory due to Him. Same words as Rom 16:27; Gal 1:5; Php 4:20; 2Ti 4:18; Heb 13:21; and nearly the same as 2Pe 3:18; Rev 1:6. In the last two passages the ascription is to the Eternal Son. See Rev 1:5.
for ever ] Lit., unto the ages; through all future periods and developements of existence. Same words as Rom 9:6; where see also note on “ Amen.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For of him – ex autou; compare 1Co 1:30; 1Co 8:6. This expression doubtless means that he is the original source and fountain of all blessings. He is the Creator of all, the rich fountain from which all streams of existence take their rise. The design of this verse is to show that no creature has any claim on God. Jews and Gentiles must alike receive salvation on the ground of his mercy. So far from having a claim on God, the apostle here affirms that all things have come from him, and therefore all must be derived to us. Nothing has been produced by chance, or haphazard; nothing by created skill or might. All has been formed by God; and therefore he has a right to dispose of all.
And through him – di autou.) That is, by his immediate operating agency. The former expression, of him, affirmed that he was the original source of all things; this declares that all are by him, or through him, as their immediate cause. It is not merely by his plan or purpose; it is by his agency, by the direct exertion of his power in their creation and bestowment. By his power they are still directed and controlled. Human agency, therefore, could not lay him under any obligation. He does not need the aid of man; and he did not call in that aid in the creation and government of the world. He is the independent Creator and Lord, and on him none can have a claim.
To him – eis autos. This expression denotes the final cause, the reason or end for which all things were formed. It is to promote his honor and glory. It is to manifest his praise, or to give a proper putting forth of the glorious attributes of God; that the exceeding greatness, and goodness, and grandeur of his character might be evinced. It is not to promote his happiness, for he was eternally happy; not to add anything to him, for he is infinite; but that he might act as God, and have the honor and praise that is due to God. As this was the design of all things, so it followed that the bestowment of his favors must be in accordance with this in such a way as to promote his glory; and not so as to consult the feelings or views of either Jews or Gentiles.
All things – The universe; the creation, or still more particularly, the things of which the apostle is discoursing. He does not affirm that he is the author of sin or of sinful thoughts; not that he creates evil, or that evil is designed to promote his glory. The apostle is not discoursing of these, but of his method of bestowing his favors; and he says that these are to be conferred in such a way as to promote his honor, and to declare the praise of hint who is the original source, the creator, and the proprietor of all things.
To whom be glory – This ascription of praise is the appropriate close of the argumentative part of the Epistle, as well as appropriate to the train of remarks into which the apostle had fallen. It expresses his hearty amen in concurrence with this view; the deep desire of a pious man that all might be to Gods glory and honor. He had not merely come to it by reasoning, but it was the sincere desire of his soul that it might be so. The Christian does not merely admit this doctrine; he is not merely driven to it by argument, but it finds a hearty response in his bosom. He rejoices in it; and sincerely desires that all may be to the honor of God. Sinners are often compelled by argument to admit it, but they do not love it. They would rejoice were it otherwise, and be glad if they were permitted rather to seek their own glory than that of the living God.
Glory – Praise, honor.
Forever – Not merely amid transitory events now, but ever onward to eternity. This will be the case. There never will be a time when the affairs of the universe shall not be conducted with reference to the glory of God. That honor and glory shall shine brighter and brighter, and all worlds shall be perfectly adapted to show his praise, and to evince his greatness, goodness, power, and love forever and ever. Thus, let it be, is the language of everyone that truly loves him.
This closes the argumentative part of the Epistle. From the close of this chapter we may make the following observations.
1. God is infinitely wise, and just, and good. This is seen in all his plans and doings, and especially in the glorious plan of saving people.
2. It becomes man to be humble. He can see but few of the reasons of the doings of an infinite God. He is not qualified to sit in judgment on his plans. He is not suited to arraign him. There is nothing more absurd than for a man to contend with God, or to find fault with his plans; and yet there is nothing more common. Man speaks, and thinks, and reasons on the great things pertaining to the divine mind and plan, as if he were qualified to counsel the being of infinite wisdom, and to arraign at the bar of his own reason the being of infinite goodness.
3. It is our duty to be submissive to God. His plans may often require him to cross the path of our pleasures, or to remove some of our enjoyments. He tries us by requiring us to put confidence in him where we cannot see the reason of his doings, and to believe that he is qualified for universal empire. In all such cases it is our duty to submit to his will. He is seeking a grander and nobler object than our private good. He is seeking the welfare of a vast universe; and he best knows in what way that can be promoted.
4. God is the creator and proprietor of all things. It would be possible to prove this from his works. But his word unequivocally asserts it. He has formed, and he upholds, and he directs all things for his glory. He who formed all has a right to all. He who is the source of life has the right to direct it, or to withdraw the gift. He on whom all depend has a right to homage and praise.
5. He has formed a universe that is eminently adapted to declare his glory. It evinces infinite power in its creation; and it is suited to fill the mind with ever-growing wonder and gladness in its contemplation. The sacred writers were filled with rapture when they contemplated it; and all the discoveries of astronomy, and geology, and science in general, in modern times, are suited to carry forward the wonder, and fill the lips with new expressions of praise. The universe is vast and grand enough to occupy the thoughts forever. How little do we know of the wonders of his creation, even pertaining to this little world; to our own bodies and souls; to the earth, the ocean, the beast and the reptile, the bird and the insect; how much less of that amazing view of worlds and systems which modern astronomy has opened to our view, the vast starry frame which the eye can penetrate for millions and millions of miles, and where it finds world piled on world, and system rising above system, in wonderful order and grandeur, and where the utmost power of the telescore can as yet find no bounds.
6. Equally true is this in his moral government. The system is such as to excite our wonder and praise. The creation and control of free, and active, and mighty minds is as wonderful as the creation and control of matter, even the vast masses of the planetary systems. Creation is filled with minds. God has peopled the worlds with conscious, free, and active intelligences. The wonderful wisdom by which he controls them; the amazing moral power by which he guards and binds them to himself, by which he restrains and awes the rebellious; and the complete subjection by which he will bring all yet at his feet, is as much replete with wonder as the wisdom and skill by which he framed the heavens. To govern mind requires more wisdom and skill than to govern matter. To control angels and human beings evinces more glory than to roll the streams or the ocean, or than to propel and guide the planets. And especially is this true of the plan of salvation. That wondrous scheme is adapted to call forth eternal, praise, and to show forever the wisdom and mercy of God. Without such a plan, we cannot see how the Divinity could be fully manifested; with that, we see God as God, vast, grand, mighty, infinite; but still seeking to do good, and having power to enter any vast mass of iniquity, and to diffuse purity and peace over the face of an alienated and dying world.
7. The salvation of sinners is not to promote their own glory primarily, but that of God. He is first, and he is last; he is midst, and without end, in their salvation. God seeks his own honor, and seeks it by their return and their obedience. But if they will not promote his glory in that way, they must be made to promote it in their ruin.
8. It is the duty of people to seek the honor of this infinitely wise and holy God. It commends itself to every mans conscience. God has formed us all; and man can have no higher destiny and honor than to be permitted to promote and spread abroad through all the universe the knowledge of a Being whose character is infinitely lovely, whose government is right, and whose presence and favor will diffuse blessings of salvation and eternal peace on all the wide creation that will be obedient to his will.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 36. For of him, c.] This is so far from being the case, for , OF him, as the original designer and author and , BY him, as the prime and efficient cause; and , TO him, as the ultimate end for the manifestation of his eternal glory and goodness, are all things in universal nature, through the whole compass of time and eternity.
The Emperor Marcus Antoninus ( lib. iv.), has a saying very much like this of St. Paul, which it is very probable he borrowed from this epistle to the Romans. Speaking of nature, whom he addresses as God, he says, , , ; O, Nature! OF thee are all things; IN thee are all things; TO thee are all things. Several of the Gentile philosophers had expressions of the same import, as may be seen in Wetstein’s quotations.
To whom be glory] And let him have the praise of all his works, from the hearts and mouths of all his intelligent creatures, for ever – throughout all the generations of men. Amen – so be it! Let this be established for ever!
I. THE apostle considers the designs of God inscrutable, and his mode of governing the world incomprehensible. His designs, schemes, and ends are all infinite, and consequently unfathomable. It is impossible to account for the dispensations either of his justice or mercy. He does things under both these characters which far surpass the comprehension of men. But though his dispensations are a great deep, yet they are never self-contradictory: though they far surpass our reason, yet they never contradict reason; nor are they ever opposite to those ideas which God has implanted in man, of goodness, justice, mercy, and truth. But it is worthy of remark, that we can more easily account for the dispensations of his justice than we can for the dispensations of his mercy. We can every where see ten thousand reasons why he should display his justice; but scarcely can we find one reason why he should display his mercy. And yet, these displays of mercy for which we can scarcely find a reason, are infinitely greater and more numerous than his displays of justice, for which the reasons are, in a vast variety of cases, as obvious as they are multiplied. The sacrifice of Christ is certainly an infinite reason why God should extend, as he does, his mercy to all men; but Jesus Christ is the gift of God’s love: who can account for the love that gave him to redeem a fallen world? The Jews have fallen under the displeasure of Divine justice: why they should be objects of this displeasure is at once seen in their ingratitude, disobedience, unbelief, and rebellion. But a most especial providence has watched over them, and preserved them in all their dispersions for 1700 years: who can account for this? Again, these very persons have a most positive promise of a future deliverance, both great and glorious: why should this be? The Gentile world was long left without a Divine revelation, while the Jews enjoyed one: who can account for this? The Jews are now cast out of favour, in a certain sense, and the reasons of it are sufficiently obvious; and the Gentiles, without any apparent reason, are taken into favour. In all these things his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out!
II. Once more: Let it be remarked that, although God is every where promising and bestowing the greatest and most ennobling privileges, together with an eternal and ineffable glory, for which we can give no reason but his own endless goodness, through the death of his Son; yet, in no case does he remove those privileges, nor exclude from this glory, but where the reasons are most obvious to the meanest capacity.
III. This epistle has been thought by some to afford proofs that God, by an eternal decree, had predestinated to eternal perdition millions of millions of human souls before they had any existence, except in his own purpose, and for no other reason but his sovereign pleasure! But such a decree can be no more found in this book, than such a disposition in the mind of Him who is the perfection, as he is the model, of wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth. May God save the reader from profaning his name, by suppositions at once so monstrous and absurd!
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; i.e. all things are of him, as the efficient cause; through him, as the disposing cause; to him, as the final cause. They are of him, without any other motive; through him, without any assistance; and to him, without any other end, i.e. for his sake alone.
To whom be glory for ever. Amen: a usual doxology in Scripture: see Gal 1:5; 2Ti 4:18; Heb 13:21; 1Pe 5:11.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
36. For of him, and through him, andto him, are all things: to whom“to Him”
be glory for ever. AmenThusworthilywith a brevity only equalled by its sublimitydoes theapostle here sum up this whole matter. “OFHim are all things,” as their eternal Source: “THROUGHHIM are all things,”inasmuch as He brings all to pass which in His eternal counsels Hepurposed: “To Him are all things,” as being His own lastEnd; the manifestation of the glory of His own perfections being theultimate, because the highest possible, design of all His procedurefrom first to last.
On this rich chapter, Note,(1) It is an unspeakable consolation to know that in times of deepestreligious declension and most extensive defection from the truth, thelamp of God has never been permitted to go out, and that a faithfulremnant has ever existeda remnant larger than their own droopingspirits could easily believe (Ro11:1-5). (2) The preservation of this remnant, even as theirseparation at the first, is all of mere grace (Rom 11:5;Rom 11:6). (3) When individualsand communities, after many fruitless warnings, are abandoned of God,they go from bad to worse (Ro11:7-10). (4) God has so ordered His dealings with the greatdivisions of mankind, “that no flesh should glory in Hispresence.” Gentile and Jew have each in turn been “shut upto unbelief,” that each in turn may experience the “mercy”which saves the chief of sinners (Ro11:11-32). (5) As we are “justified by faith,” so arewe “kept by the power of God through faith”faithaloneunto salvation (Ro11:20-32). (6) God’s covenant with Abraham and his natural seedis a perpetual covenant, in equal force under the Gospel as beforeit. Therefore it is, that the Jews as a nation still survive, inspite of all the laws which, in similar circumstances, have eitherextinguished or destroyed the identity of other nations. Andtherefore it is that the Jews as a nation will yet be restored to thefamily of God, through the subjection of their proud hearts to Himwhom they have pierced. And as believing Gentiles will be honored tobe the instruments of this stupendous change, so shall the vastGentile world reap such benefit from it, that it shall be like thecommunication of life to them from the dead. (7) Thus has theChristian Church the highest motive to the establishment and vigorousprosecution of missions to the Jews; God having not onlypromised that there shall be a remnant of them gathered in every age,but pledged Himself to the final ingathering of the whole nationassigned the honor of that ingathering to the Gentile Church, andassured them that the event, when it does arrive, shall have alife-giving effect upon the whole world (Rom 11:12-16;Rom 11:26-31). (8) Thosewho think that in all the evangelical prophecies of the Old Testamentthe terms “Jacob,” “Israel,” c., are to beunderstood solely of the Christian Church, would appear toread the Old Testament differently from the apostle, who, from theuse of those very terms in Old Testament prophecy, draws arguments toprove that God has mercy in store for the natural Israel(Rom 11:26 Rom 11:27).(9) Mere intellectual investigations into divine truth in general,and the sense of the living oracles in particular, as they have ahardening effect, so they are a great contrast to the spirit of ourapostle, whose lengthened sketch of God’s majestic procedure towardsmen in Christ Jesus ends here in a burst of admiration, whichloses itself in the still loftier frame of adoration (Ro11:33-36).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For of him, and through him, and to him are all things,…. Not only all things in nature and providence, he being the Maker and efficient cause of things, and the preserver and supporter of them their beings, and to whose glory they are all designed and directed; but all things in grace owe their original to him, as their first cause; they are produced by him, and make for his glory; they all spring from his sovereign will, are brought about by his almighty power, and tend to the glory of his grace; as does every thing in election, redemption, and regeneration: particularly the counsels and purposes of God respecting men may be here meant; which all rise out of his own heart, without any motive or inducement to them in the creature; are accomplished by his divine power, notwithstanding all the opposition of men and devils; and all issue in his glory, even such of them as may seem to carry in them severity to some of his creatures: and since this is the case, the following doxology, or ascription of glory to God, is justly and pertinently made,
to whom be glory for ever; and which will be given to him by angels and men to all eternity, for the perfection of his being, the counsels of his will, and the works of his hands, both of nature and grace; to which the, apostle annexes his
amen, so be it, assenting to it, wishing for it, and believing of it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Of him ( ),
through him (‘ ),
unto him ( ). By these three prepositions Paul ascribes the universe ( ) with all the phenomena concerning creation, redemption, providence to God as the
Source (), the
Agent (), the
Goal ().
For ever ( ). “For the ages.” Alford terms this doxology in verses 33-36 “the sublimest apostrophe existing even in the pages of inspiration itself.”
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Of – through – to [ – – ] . Of, proceeding from as the source : through, by means of, as maintainer, preserver, ruler : to or unto, He is the point to which all tends. All men and things are for His glory (1Co 14:28). Alford styles this doxology “the sublimest apostrophe existing even in the pages of inspiration itself.”
NOTE
PAUL’S ARGUMENT IN ROMANS 9, 10 AND 11
These chapters, as they are the most difficult of Paul ‘s writings, have been most misunderstood and misapplied. Their most dangerous perversion is that which draws from them the doctrine of God ‘s arbitrary predestination of individuals to eternal life or eternal perdition.
It can be shown that such is not the intent of these chapters. They do not discuss the doctrine of individual election and reprobation with reference to eternal destiny. The treatment of this question is subordinate to a different purpose, and is not, as it is not intended to be, exhaustive. At the time when the epistle was written, this question was not agitating the Church at large nor the Roman church in particular. Had this been the case, we may be sure, from the analogy of other epistles of Paul, that he would have treated it specifically, as he does the doctrine of justification by faith, in this epistle, and the questions of idol – meats and the resurrection in first Corinthians.
Such a discussion would not have been germane to the design of this epistle, which was to unfold the Christian doctrine of justification by faith, as against the Jewish doctrine of justification by works.
The great question which was then agitating the Church was the relation of Judaism to Christianity. Paul declared that Christianity had superseded Judaism. The Jew maintained, either, that the Messiah had not come in the person of Jesus Christ, and that Christianity was therefore an imposture, or that, admitting Jesus to be the Messiah, He had come to maintain the law and the institutions of Judaism : that, therefore, entrance into the messianic kingdom was possible only through the gate of Judaism; and that the true Christian must remain constant to all the ordinances and commandments of the law of Moses.
According to the Jewish idea, all Gentiles were excluded from the kingdom of God unless they should enter it as Jewish proselytes. Paul himself, before his conversion, had undertaken to stamp out Christianity as heresy, verily thinking that he “ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth” (Act 26:9). Hence the Jew “compassed sea and land to make one proselyte” (Mt 23:15). Every Gentile who should resist the conquest of the world by Israel would be destroyed by Messiah. The Jew had no doubts as to the absoluteness of the divine sovereignty, since its fancied application flattered his self – complacency and national pride. All Jews were elect, and all others were reprobate. Paul ‘s proclamation of Messianic privilege to the Gentiles did, perhaps, quite as much to evoke Jewish hatred against himself, as his allegiance to the Jesus whom the Jews had crucified as a malefactor.
The discussion in these three chapters fits perfectly into this question, It is aimed at the Jews ‘ national and religious conceit. It is designed to show them that, notwithstanding their claim to be God ‘s elect people, the great mass of their nation has been justly rejected by God; and further, that God ‘s elective purpose includes the Gentiles. Hence, while maintaining the truth of divine sovereignty in the strongest and most positive manner, it treats it on a grander scale, and brings it to bear against the very elect themselves.
WHAT IS THE PLACE OF THESE CHAPTERS IN THE ORDER OF THE ARGUMENT?
Early in the discussion, Paul had asserted that the messianic salvation had been decreed to the Jew first (i. 16; Rom 2:10; compare Joh 1:11). In the face of this stood the fact that the Jewish people generally had rejected the offer of God in Christ. Paul himself, after offering the Gospel to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, had said : “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you; but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles” (Act 13:46; compare Act 18:6). The Jew had fallen under the judgment of God (Rom 2:1, 2). Resting in the law, making his boast of God, claiming to be a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, and having the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law, he had made him self a scandal in the eyes of the Gentiles by his notorious depravity, and had proved himself to be not a Jew, since his circumcision was not of the heart (Rom 2:17 – 29) Notwithstanding these facts, the Jew claimed that because he was a Jew God could not reject him consistently with His own election and covenant promise. If the Gospel were true, and Jesus really the Messiah, the promises made to the Jewish people, who rejected the Messiah, were nullified. Or, if the election of God held, Israel was and forever remained the people of God, in which case the Gospel was false, and Jesus an impostor. “Thus the dilemma seemed to be : either to affirm God ‘s faithfulness to His own election and deny the Gospel, or to affirm the Gospel, but give the lie to the divine election and faithfulness.” (Godet.) Paul must face this problem. It lies in the straight line of his argument. Hints of it have already appeared in Rom 3:1 sqq; Rom 4:1. The discussion necessarily involves the truth of the divine sovereignty and election. In studying Paul ‘s treatment of this question, mistake and misconstruction are easy, because the truths of divine sovereignty and electiv
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “For of him,” (kai di autou) “Because of him”, as a, and “the” first cause; the originator of all things, visible and invisible, the seen world and the unseen world, and the fountain of all goodness, Jas 1:17; Joh 1:3.
2) “And through him”, (kai di I autou) “And through media, instrument, or agency of his person”; as not only Creator but also sustainer and preserving governor of the universe, La 3:22; 1Co 8:6; Act 17:26-27.
3) “And to him, are all things,” (kai eis auton ta panta) “And with relationship to him all things exist;” and to or toward this great God thru his creation, his Son, his Spirit, and his church glory and honor and praise and adoration are to be given, Col 1:16-17; Col 3:17; all things in heaven and on earth are obligated to him for all that they are for without him ye can do nothing, Rev 5:12-13.
4) “To whom be glory forever. Amen.” (auto he doksa eis tous aionas, amen) “Let be unto him the glory into and with relationship to the ages. So may it ever be (amen). He deserves the highest praise and adoration of the holiest nature of every man, forever and always. The compelling desire of every Christian, the driving motive of every saint, and the zeal of the Lord’s House, his church of this age, should be to bear his message to the praise and honor of his glory forever, Eph 3:21; Gal 6:14; 1Co 10:31; 1Co 15:28; 1Ti 1:17.
“LOOKING BACK TO THE TITLE”
“I have read of an author who, whilst he was writing a book he was about to publish, would every now and then look back to the title, to see if his work corresponded thereto, and if it answered the expectation raised thereby. Now the use I would make hereof, and would recommend to you, is for thee, 0 sinner, to look back every now and then and consider for what thou wast created; and for thee, 0 saint, to look back every now and then, and consider for what thou wast redeemed.
–Ashburner
“THE UNIVERSAL PROVIDENCE”
By Him all things consist. Every object in nature is impressed with His footprints, and each new day repeats the wonders of creation. Yes, there is not a morning we open our eyes but they meet a scene as wonderful as that which fixed the gaze of Adam when he awoke into existence. Nor is there an object, be it pebble or pearl, weed or rose, the flower-spangled sward beneath, or the star-spangled sky above, a worm or an angel, a drop of water or a boundless ocean, in which intelligence may not discern, and piety may not adore, the Providence of Him who assumed our nature that he might save our souls. If God is not in all the thoughts of the wicked, He is in everything else.
-Guthrie
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
36. For from him and through him, etc. A confirmation of the last verse. He shows, that it is very far from being the case, that we can glory in any good thing of our own against God, since we have been created by him from nothing, and now exist through him. He hence infers, that our being should be employed for his glory: for how unreasonable would it be for creatures, whom he has formed and whom he sustains, to live for any other purpose than for making his glory known? It has not escaped my notice, that the phrase, εἰς αὐτὸν, to him, is sometimes taken for ἐν αὐτῷ , in or by him, but improperly: and as its proper meaning is more suitable to the present subject, it is better to retain it, than to adopt that which is improper. The import of what is said is, — That the whole order of nature would be strangely subverted, were not God, who is the beginning of all things, the end also.
To him be glory, etc. The proposition being as it were proved, he now confidently assumes it as indubitable, — That the Lord’s own glory ought everywhere to continue to him unchangeably: for the sentence would be frigid were it taken generally; but its emphasis depends on the context, that. God justly claims for himself absolute supremacy, and that in the condition of mankind and of the whole world nothing is to be sought beyond his own glory. It hence follows, that absurd and contrary to reason, and even insane, are all those sentiments which tend to diminish his glory.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(36) Of him, and through him, and to him.All things proceed from God, all things are made or wrought by Him, and all things exist for His glory, and to carry out His ends. It is a mistake to see in this, as some of the older commentators have done, an allusion to the Trinity. This can hardly be. The subject of the whole verse appears to be God the Father, and the prominent idea is rather the unity of creation corresponding to the unity of the Godhead. The whole system of things issues from and returns to Him, accomplishing in its course His beneficent designs. It is true, however, that the use of the prepositions is such as in more analytical passages would be taken to express the threefold relation (origination, mediate causation, and retrocession) which the doctrine of the Trinity embodies.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
36. In the triad of this verse we recognise a dim reference to the distinctive attributes of the three persons of the Trinity.
Of him Rather, from him, as primitive source.
Through him As universal medium and agent.
To him As End, to which all things redound. This third, however, would seem to refer to the Spirit only as finale deity after the economy of salvation closes. The triad in Eph 4:6, is more perfectly trinitarian, “Above all, through all, and in you all.” Alford very accurately says, “Though Paul has never definitively expressed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as a definite formula, yet he was conscious of it as a living reality.” Even the triad (Rom 11:33) of riches, wisdom, knowledge source, medium, and result is not without its trinitarian look. And to this mystic Trine is ascribed glory eternal under the unquestionable sense of a divine attribute. What a dim yet decisive adumbration of the three-one God!
The entire First Part or Argument (see “Plan”) is now closed. The very shape of the Epistle presents in type the great fact that our obligation to the duties of Life springs as a result from the doctrines of Christianity. Hence we title this Second Part:
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen.’
And the reason why what he has just declared is true is because everything, apart from sin which is an act of man, is of God. He is the source of all things (‘out of Him’), He is the controller of all things (‘through Him’), He is the goal of all things (‘to Him’). To Him therefore be the glory. Amen (this is sure).
Excursus. Is The Church The True Israel In God’s Eyes?
Is The Church the True Israel?
The question being asked here is whether the early church saw itself as the true Israel. It should be noted that by this we are not speaking of ‘spiritual Israel’, except in so far as Israel were supposed to be spiritual, or of a parallel Israel, nor are we talking about ‘replacing Israel’, but we are asking whether they saw themselves as actually being the continuation of the real entity of Israel whom God had promised to bless.
In this regard the first thing we should note is that Jesus as the proclaimed Messiah spoke to His disciples of ‘building His congregation/church (ekklesia)’ (Mat 16:18), that is, ‘the congregation of the Messiah’. Now the Greek Old Testament often used ekklesia (church) to refer to the congregation of Israel when translating the Pentateuch (see Deu 4:10; Deu 9:10; Deu 18:16; Deu 23:3; Deu 23:8; Deu 32:1). This suggests then that Jesus was here thinking in terms of building the true congregation of Israel, the remnant arising out of the old (Isa 6:12-13; Zec 13:9). It thus ties in with Joh 15:1-6 where He calls Himself the true vine, in contrast with old Israel, the false vine (Isa 5:1-7; Jer 2:21). The renewed Israel is springing up from the Messiah. Indeed the reason for the adjective ‘true’ is as a direct contrast to ‘the false’.
While this did come after He had said that He had come only to ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’, that is those of Israel who were as sheep without a shepherd (Mat 10:6; Mat 15:24 compare Mat 9:36 and see Jer 50:6), it also followed the time when His thinking clearly took a new turn following His dealings with the Syro-phoenician woman, when He began a ministry in more specifically Gentile territory. So while at the core of His ‘congregation’ were to be those Jews who responded to His teaching and became His followers, He undoubtedly envisaged a wider outreach.
There is therefore good reason for thinking that in His mind the ‘congregation/church’ equates with the true ‘Israel’, the Israel within Israel (Rom 9:6), as indeed it did in the Greek translations of the Old Testament where ‘the congregation/assembly of Israel’, which was finally composed of all who responded to the covenant, was translated as ‘the church (ekklesia) of Israel’. That being so we may then see it as indicating that He was now intending to found a new Israel, which it later turned out would include Gentiles. Indeed this was the very basis on which the early believers called themselves ‘the church/congregation’, that is, ‘the congregation of the new Israel’, and while they were at first made up mainly of Jews and proselytes, which was all that the Apostles were expecting until God forcibly interrupted them, this gradually developed into including both Jews and Gentiles.
Indeed in Act 4:27-28 Luke demonstrates quite clearly that the old unbelieving Israel is no longer, after the resurrection, the true Israel, for we read, “For in truth in this city against your holy Servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to come about.” Note the four ‘items’ mentioned, the Gentiles, the peoples of Israel, ‘King’ (Tetrarch) Herod and Pontius Pilate the ruler. And note that these words follow as an explanation of a quotation from Psa 2:1 in Act 4:25-26, which is as follows:
‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
And the peoples imagine vain things,
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers were gathered together,
Against the Lord and against His anointed –.’
The important point to note here is that ‘the peoples’ who imagined vain things, who in the original Psalm were nations who were enemies of Israel, have now become in Acts ‘the peoples of Israel’. Thus the ‘peoples of Israel’ who were opposing the Apostles and refusing to believe are here seen as the enemy of God and His Anointed, and of His people (compare Rom 11:28). It is a clear indication that old unbelieving Israel was now seen as numbered by God among the nations (compare how Jesus told His disciples to ‘shake the dust off their feet’ when they left Jewish town which had not received them (Mat 10:14), an action indicating that they were seen as ‘unclean Gentiles’), and that that part of Israel which had believed in Christ were seen as the true Israel. As Jesus had said to Israel, ‘the Kingly Rule of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits’ (Mat 21:43). Thus the King now has a new people of Israel to guard and watch over.
The same idea is found in Joh 15:1-6. The false vine (the old Israel – Isa 5:1-7) has been cut down and replaced by the true vine of ‘Christ at one with His people’ (Joh 15:1-6; Eph 2:11-22). Here Jesus, and those who abide in Him (the church/congregation), are the new Israel. The old unbelieving part of Israel has been cut off (Joh 15:6) and replaced by all those who come to Jesus and abide in Jesus, that is both believing Jews and believing Gentiles (Rom 11:17-28), who together with Jesus form the true Vine by becoming its ‘branches’.
The renewed Israel, the ‘Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16), thus sprang from Jesus. And it was He Who established its new leaders who would ‘rule over (‘judge’) the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Mat 19:28; Luk 22:30). Here ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’ refers to all who will come to believe in Jesus through His word (compare Jas 1:1), and the initial, if not the complete fulfilment, of this promise occurred in Acts. This appointment of His Apostles to rule ‘over the tribes of Israel’ was not intended to divide the world into two parts, consisting of Jew and Gentile, with the two parts seen as separate, and with Israel under the Apostles, while the Gentiles were under other rulers, but as describing a united Christian ‘congregation’ under the Apostles. Thus those over whom they ‘ruled’ would be ‘the true Israel’ which would include both believing Jews and believing Gentiles. These would thus become the true Israel.
This true Israel was founded on believing Jews. The Apostles were Jews, and were to be the foundation of the new Israel which incorporated Gentiles within it (Eph 2:20; Rev 21:14). And initially all its first foundation members were Jews. Then as it spread it first did so among Jews until there were ‘about five thousand’ Jewish males who were believers to say nothing of women and children (Act 4:4). Then it spread throughout all Judaea, and then through the synagogues of ‘the world’, so that soon there were a multitude of Jews who were ‘Christians’ (‘Messiah’s people’). Here then was the initial true Israel, a new Israel within Israel. An Israel which had accepted God’s Messiah.
But then God revealed that He had a more expanded purpose for it. Proselytes (Gentile converts) and God-fearers (Gentile adherents to the synagogues), people who were already seen as connected with Israel, began to join and they also became branches of the true vine by abiding in Christ (Joh 15:1-6) and were grafted into the olive tree (Rom 11:17-28). They became ‘fellow-citizens’ with the Jewish believers (‘the saints’, a regular Old Testament name for true Israelites who were seen as true believers). They became members of the ‘household of God’. (Eph 2:11-22). And so the new Israel sprang up, following the same pattern as the old, and incorporating believing Jews and believing Gentiles. That is why Paul could describe the new church as ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16), because both Jews and Gentiles were now ‘the seed of Abraham’ (Gal 3:29).
Those who deny that the church is Israel and still equate Israel with the Jews must in fact see all these believing Jews as cut off from Israel, as ‘the Jews’ in fact in time did. For by the late 1st century AD, the Israel for which those who deny that the church is Israel contend, was an Israel made up only of Jews who did not see Christian Jews as belonging to Israel. As far as they were concerned Christian Jews were cut off from Israel. And in the same way believing Jews who followed Paul’s teaching saw fellow Jews who did not believe as no longer being true Israel. They in turn saw the unbelieving Jews as cut off from Israel. As Paul puts it, ‘they are not all Israel who are Israel’ (Rom 9:6).
For the new Israel now saw themselves as the true Israel. They saw themselves as the ‘Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16). And that is why Paul stresses to the Gentile Christians in Eph 2:11-22; Rom 11:17-28 that they are now a part of the new Israel having been made one with the true people of God in Jesus Christ. Paul was expressing here the view of the early church, not expounding a new teaching which had not previously been appreciated.
In order to consider all this in more detail let us look back in history.
When Abraham entered the land of Canaan having been called there by God he was promised that in him all the world would be blessed, and this was later also promised to his seed (Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Gen 22:18; Gen 26:4; Gen 28:14). But Abraham did not enter the land alone. He came as head of a family tribe. In Genesis 14 we are told that he had three hundred and eighteen fighting men ‘born in his house’, in other words born to servants, camp followers and slaves. One of his own slave wives was an Egyptian (Genesis 16) and his steward was probably Syrian, a Damascene (Gen 15:2). Thus Abraham was patriarch over a family tribe, all of whom with him inherited the promises, and they came from a number of different nationalities. Only a small proportion were actually descended from Abraham directly.
We should perhaps note that ‘Abraham’ regularly means ‘Abraham and his household’, that is, his family tribe. Compare how ‘Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them’ (Isa 36:1). ‘In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up’ (2Ki 24:1). They did not do it on their own.
From Abraham came Isaac through whom the most basic promises were to be fulfilled, for God said, ‘in Isaac shall your seed be called’ (Gen 21:12; Rom 9:7; see also Gen 26:3-5). Thus the seed of Ishmael, who was himself the seed of Abraham, while enjoying promises from God, were excluded from the major line of promises. While prospering, they would not be the people through whom the whole world would be blessed. And this was also true of Abraham’s later sons born to Keturah. Thus the large part of Abraham’s descendants were at this stage already cut off from the full Abrahamic promises. As Paul puts it, as we have seen, ‘In Isaac will your seed be called’ (Rom 9:7).
Jacob, who was renamed Israel, was born of Isaac, and it was to him that the future lordship of people and nations was seen as passed on (Gen 27:29) and from his twelve sons came the twelve tribes of the ‘children of Israel’. But as with Abraham these twelve tribes would include retainers, servants and slaves. The ‘households’ that moved to Egypt would include such servants and slaves. The ‘seventy’ were accompanied by wives, retainers, and their children. So the ‘children of Israel’ even at this stage would include people from many peoples and nations. They included Jacob/Israel’s own descendants and their wives, together with their servants and retainers, and their wives and children, ‘many ‘born in their house’ but not directly their seed (Gen 15:3). Israel was already a conglomerate people. Even at the beginning they were not all literally descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Most were rather ‘adopted’ into the family tribe.
When eventually after hundreds of years they left Egypt, already a mixed nation, they were then joined by a ‘mixed multitude’ from many nations, who with them had been enslaved in Egypt, and these joined with them in their flight (Exo 12:38). So to the already mixed people of Israel were united with the mixed multitude and became even more of a mixture. At Sinai these were all joined within the covenant and became ‘children of Israel’, and when they entered the land all their males were circumcised as true Israelites (Jos 5:8). Among these was an ‘Ethiopian’ (Cushite) woman who became Moses’ wife (Num 12:1). Thus we discover that ‘Israel’ from its commencement was an international community. Indeed it was made clear from the beginning that any who wanted to do so could join Israel and become an Israelite by submission to the covenant and by being circumcised (Exo 12:48-49). Membership of the people of God was thus from the beginning to be open to all nations by submission to God through the covenant. It was a theocracy. And these all then connected themselves with one of the tribes of Israel, were absorbed into them, and began to trace their ancestry back to Abraham and Jacob even though they were not true born, and still in many cases retained an identifying appellation such as, for example, ‘Uriah the Hittite’. (Whether Uriah was one such we do not know, although we think it extremely probable. But there must certainly have been many who did it. Consider the list of David’s mighty men and their origins – 2 Samuel 23). And even while Moses was alive it proved necessary to make regulations as to who could enter the assembly or congregation of the Lord, and at what stage people of different nations could enter it (Deu 23:1-8), so that they could then become Israelites, and ‘sons of Abraham’.
That this was carried out in practise is evidenced by the numerous Israelites who bore a foreign name, consider for example ‘Uriah the Hittite’ (2 Samuel 11) and many of the mighty men of David (2Sa 23:8-28). These latter were so close to David that it is inconceivable that some at least did not become true members of the covenant by submitting to the covenant and being circumcised when it was clearly open to them through the Law. Later again it became the practise in Israel, in accordance with Exo 12:48-49, for anyone who ‘converted’ to Israel and began to believe in the God of Israel, to be received into ‘Israel’ on equal terms with the true-born, and that by circumcision and submission to the covenant. These were later called ‘proselytes’. In contrast people also left Israel by desertion, and by not bringing their children within the covenant, when for example they went abroad or were exiled. These were then ‘cut off from Israel’, as were deep sinners. ‘Israel’ was therefore always a fluid concept, and was, at least purportedly, composed of all who submitted to the covenant.
Two examples of non-Israelites who became Israelites are found (1) in the Edomites who settled in southern Judah. When John Hyrcanus was High Priest and Governor he forced them at the point of the sword to be circumcised and become Israelites. And (2) in the large numbers of Gentiles who were resident in Galilee when it was seized by the Jews. Aristobulus treated them in the same way. Thus by the time of Jesus both groups were accepted as ‘Israelites’.
When Jesus came His initial purpose was to call back to God ‘the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Mat 10:6), those in Israel who were seeking a Shepherd, and in the main for the first part, with exceptions (e.g. John 4), He limited His ministry to Jews. But notice that those Jews who would not listen to His disciples were to be treated like Gentiles. The disciples were to shake their dust off their feet (Mat 10:14). So even during Jesus’ ministry there was a cutting off as well as a welcoming. After His dealings with the Syro-phoenician woman, He appears to have expanded His thinking, or His approach, further and to have moved into more Gentile territory, and later He declared that there were other sheep that He would also call and they would be one flock with Israel (Joh 10:16).
Thus when the Gospel began to reach out to the Gentiles those converted were welcomed as part of the one flock. The question that arose then was, ‘did they need to be circumcised in order to become members of the new Israel?’ Was a special proselytisation necessary, as with proselytes to old Israel, which was to be evidenced by circumcision? That was what the circumcision controversy was all about. The Judaisers said ‘yes’ and Paul said ‘No’. And the question was only asked because all saw these new converts as becoming a part of Israel. If they had not seen these Gentiles as becoming a part of Israel there would have been no controversy. There would have been no need for circumcision. It was only because they were seen as becoming proselyte Israelites that the problem arose. That is why Paul’s argument was never that circumcision was not necessary because they were not becoming Israel. He indeed accepted that they would become members of Israel. (Eph 2:11-22) But rather he argues that circumcision was no longer necessary because all who were in Christ were circumcised with the circumcision of Christ. They were already circumcised by faith. They had the circumcision of the heart, and were circumcised with the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11), and therefore did not need to be circumcised again.
Thus in Rom 11:17-24 he speaks clearly of converted Gentiles being ‘grafted into the olive tree’ through faith, and of Israelites being broken off through unbelief, to be welcomed again if they repent and come to Christ. Whatever we therefore actually see the olive tree as representing, it is quite clear that it does speak of those who are cut off because they do not believe, and of those who are ingrafted because they do believe (precisely as it was to happen with Israel), and this in the context of ‘Israel’ being saved or not. But the breaking off or casting off of Israelites in the Old Testament was always an indication of being cut off from Israel. Thus we must see the olive tree as, like the true vine, signifying all who are now included within the promises, that is the true Israel, with spurious elements being cut off because they are not really a part of them, while new members are grafted in. The difficulty lies in the simplicity of the illustration which like all illustrations cannot cover every point.
Furthermore it should be noted that ‘olive tree’ is the very name by which YHWH called Israel for in Jer 11:16 we read, ‘YHWH called your name ‘an olive tree, green, beautiful and with luscious fruit’. The importance of this comes out in that those who are actually said to be ‘called by name’ by YHWH are very few (Adam, Jacob/Israel and Magormissabib, the last being an indication of the judgment that was coming on him in Jer 20:3). So, as Paul knew, ‘olive tree’ was YHWH’s name for the true Israel.
This then raises an interesting question. If unbelieving Israel can be cut off from the olive tree, what in Paul’s mind is the olive tree? For this illustration suggests that unbelieving Israel had been members of the olive tree, and if the olive tree is true Israel then does that mean that they had once been members of true Israel?
Exactly the same question could be posed about the branches of the vine which are pruned from the vine in Joh 15:1-6 and are burned in the fire. They too ‘appear’ to have been members of the true vine. And the same could be said of those caught into the net of the Kingly Rule of Heaven who are finally ejected and brought into judgment (Mat 13:47-50). They too ‘appear’ to have been a part of the Kingly Rule of God. Thus the olive tree, the true Vine and the Kingly Rule of Heaven are all seen as seeming to contain false members. On this basis then none of them could surely be the true Israel?
This argument, however, is clearly false. For the true Vine is Jesus Himself. Thus the fact that some can be cut off from the true Vine hardly means that the true vine (Jesus) is to be seen as partly a false vine. The illustration simply indicates that they should never have been there in the first place. They were spurious. Outwardly they may have appeared to have been members of the true vine, but inwardly they were not. The same can be said to apply to the Kingly Rule of God. Those who were gathered into the net of the Kingly Rule of God divide up into ‘children of the Kingly Rule’ and ‘children of the Evil One’. The latter were never thus children of the Kingly Rule. They were never a true part of the Kingly Rule. They were children of the Evil One all the time. Indeed their very behaviour revealed that they were not under God’s Kingly Rule. In the same way then the olive tree is an Israel composed of true believers, and is such that unbelieving Jews are cut off because essentially they are proved not to have been a part of it. Outwardly they had appeared to be, but they were not. In each case it simply means that there were spurious elements connected with them that were masquerading as the real thing, which simply have to be removed. Rather than being in the basic concept, the problem arises from the difficulty of conveying the concept in simple pictorial terms. For the true Vine can hardly really have false members, otherwise it would not be the true Vine. In each case, therefore, it is can clearly be seen that in fact those ‘cut off’ or ‘ejected’ were never really a part of what they were seen to be cut off from, but had only physically given the appearance of being so.
The same is true of the ‘church’ today. There is an outward church composed of all who attach themselves and call themselves Christians, and there is a true church composed of all who are true believers and are ‘in Christ’. It is only the latter who benefit, and will benefit, from all that God has promised for His ‘church’. The whole essence of the message of Jesus, and of the New Testament, was that it was only those who believed from the heart who were the true people of God.
In the same way, as Paul has said, not all Israel are (or ever were) the true Israel (Rom 9:6). Many professed to be but were spurious ‘members’. They were fakes. Their hearts were not within the covenant. They were ‘not My people’ (Hos 2:23). This stresses the difference between the outward and the inward. Not all who say ‘Lord’ Lord’ will enter the Kingly Rule of God, but only those will enter who by their lives reveal that they truly are what they profess to be (Mat 7:21).
This idea also comes out regularly in the Old Testament where God made it quite clear that only a proportion of Israel would avoid His judgments (e.g. Isa 6:13). The remainder (and large majority) would be ‘cut off’, for although outwardly professing to be His people they were not His people. And thus it was with the people of Israel in Jesus’ day. They were revealed by their fruits, which included how they responded to Jesus the Messiah.
But in Ephesians 2 Paul makes clear that Gentiles can become a part of the true Israel. He tells the Gentiles that they had in the past been ‘alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of the promise’ (Rom 2:12). They had not been a part of Israel. Thus in the past they had not belonged to the twelve tribes. But then he tells them that they are now ‘made nigh by the blood of Christ’ (Rom 2:13), Who has ‘made both one and broken down the wall of partition — creating in Himself of two one new man’ (Rom 2:14-15). Now therefore, through Christ, they have been made members of the commonwealth of Israel, and inherit the promises. So they are ‘no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God, being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets’ (Rom 2:19-20). ‘Strangers and sojourners’ was the Old Testament description of those who were not true Israelites. It is therefore made as clear as can be that they have now entered the ‘renewed’ Israel. They are no longer strangers and sojourners but are now ‘fellow-citizens’ with God’s people. They have entered into the covenant of promise (Gal 3:29), and thus inherit all the promises of the Old Testament, including the prophecies. To Paul all true believers were Israel.
So as with people in the Old Testament who were regularly adopted into the twelve tribes of Israel (e.g. the mixed multitude – Exo 12:38), Gentile Christians too are now seen as so incorporated. That is why Paul can call the church ‘the Israel of God’, made up of Jews and ex-Gentiles, having declared circumcision and uncircumcision as unimportant because there is a new creation (Gal 6:15-16), a circumcision of the heart. It is those who are in that new creation who are the Israel of God.
In context ‘The Israel of God’ can here only mean that new creation, the church of Christ, otherwise he is being inconsistent. For as he points out, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matters any more. What matters is the new creation. It must therefore be that which identifies the Israel of God. For if circumcision is irrelevant then the Israel of God cannot be made up of the circumcised, even the believing circumcised, for circumcision has lost its meaning. The point therefore behind both of these passages is that all Christians become, by adoption, members of the twelve tribes.
There would in fact be no point in mentioning circumcision if he was not thinking of incorporation of believing Gentiles into the twelve tribes. The importance of circumcision was that to the Jews it made the difference between those who became genuine proselytes, and thus members of the twelve tribes, and those who remained as ‘God-fearers’, loosely attached but not circumcised and therefore not accepted as full Jews. That then was why the Judaisers wanted all Gentiles who became Christians to be circumcised. It was because they did not believe that they could otherwise become genuine Israelites. So they certainly saw converted Gentiles as becoming Israelites. There could be no other reason for wanting Gentiles to be circumcised. (Jesus had never in any way commanded circumcision). But Paul says that that is not so. He argues that they can become true Israelites without being physically circumcised because they are circumcised in heart. They are circumcised in Christ. So when Paul argues that Christians have been circumcised in heart (Rom 2:26; Rom 2:29; Rom 4:12; Php 3:3; Col 2:11) he is saying that that is all that is necessary in order for them to be members of the true Israel.
A great deal of discussion often takes place about the use of ‘kai’ in Gal 6:16, ‘as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be on them and mercy, and (kai) on the Israel of God’. It is asked, ‘does it signify that the Israel of God is additional to and distinct from those who ‘walk by this rule’, or simply define them?’ (If the Israel of God differs from those who ‘walk by this rule’ then that leaves only the Judaisers as the Israel of God, and excludes Paul and His Jewish supporters. But can anyone really contend that that was what Paul meant?) The answer to this question is really decided by the preceding argument. We cannot really base our case on arguments about ‘kai’. But for the sake of clarity we will consider the question.
Kai is a vague connecting word. It cannot be denied that ‘kai’ can mean ‘and’ in some circumstances, and as thus indicate adding something additional, because it is a connecting word. But nor can it be denied that it can alternatively, in contexts like this, mean ‘even’, and as thus equating what follows with what has gone before, again because it is a connecting word (it does not mean ‘and’, it simply connects and leaves the context to decide its meaning). ‘Kai’ in fact is often used in Greek as a kind of connection word where in English it is redundant altogether. It is not therefore a strongly definitive word. Thus its meaning must always be decided by the context, and a wise rule has been made that we make the decision on the basis of which choice will add least to the meaning of the word in the context (saying in other words that because of its ambiguity ‘kai’ should never be stressed). That would mean here the translating of it as ‘even’, giving it its mildest influence.
That that is the correct translation comes out if we give the matter a little more thought. The whole letter has been emphasising that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:28), and that this arises because all are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise. So even had we not had the reasons that we have already considered, how strange it would then be for Paul to close the letter by distinguishing Jew from Greek, and Gentiles from the believing Jews. He would be going against all that he has just said. And yet that is exactly what he would be doing if he was exclusively indicating by the phrase ‘the Israel of God’ only the believing Jews. So on all counts, interpretation, grammar and common sense, ‘the Israel of God’ must include both Jews and Gentiles.
In Gal 4:26 it is made clear that the true Jerusalem is the heavenly Jerusalem, the earthly having been rejected. This new heavenly Jerusalem is ‘the mother of us all’ just as Sarah had been the mother of Israel. All Christians are thus the children of the freewoman, that is, of Sarah (Gal 4:31). This reveals that they are therefore the true sons of Abraham, signifying ‘Israel’. To argue that being a true son of Abraham through Sara is not the same thing as being a son of Jacob/Israel would in fact be to argue contrary to all that Israel believed. Their boast was precisely that they were ‘sons of Abraham’, indeed the true sons of Abraham, because they ‘came’ from Sara’s seed.
Again in Romans he points out to the Gentiles that there is a remnant of Israel which is faithful to God and they are the true Israel (Rom 11:5). The remainder have been cast off (Romans 10:27, 29; Rom 11:15; Rom 11:17; Rom 11:20). Then he describes the Christian Gentiles as ‘grafted in among them’ becoming ‘partakers with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree’ (Rom 11:17). They are now part of the same tree so it is clear that he regards them as now being part of the faithful remnant of Israel (see argument on this point earlier). With regard to the olive tree we are told that God said to Israel, ‘God called your name “A green olive tree, fair, and of goodly fruit’ (Jer 11:16). So the olive tree is very much a picture of the true Israel. This oneness is again declared quite clearly in Galatians, for ‘those who are of faith, the same are the sons of Abraham’ (Gal 3:7).
Note that in Romans 9 Paul declares that not all earthly Israel are really Israel, only those who are chosen by God. It is only the chosen who are the foreknown Israel. See Rom 9:8; Rom 9:24-26; Rom 11:2. This is a reminder that to Paul ‘Israel’ is a fluid concept. It does not have just one fixed meaning. It can mean all Jews. It can mean all believing Jews. It can mean all unbelieving Jews, excluding believing Jews, depending on Paul’s context. Thus ‘they are not all Israel who are Israel’ indicates already two definitions of Israel (Rom 9:6).
The privilege of being a ‘son of Abraham’ is that one is adopted into the twelve tribes of Israel. It is the twelve tribes who proudly called themselves ‘the sons of Abraham’ (Joh 8:39; Joh 8:53). That is why in the one man in Christ Jesus there can be neither Jew nor Gentile (Gal 3:28). For they all become one as Israel by being one with the One Who in Himself sums up all that Israel was meant to be, the true vine (Joh 15:1-6; Isa 49:3). For ‘if you are Abraham’s seed, you are heirs according to the promise’ (Gal 3:29). To be Abraham’s ‘seed’ within the promise is to be a member of the twelve tribes. There can really be no question about it. The reference to ‘seed’ is decisive. You cannot be ‘Abraham’s seed’ through Sara and yet not a part of Israel. (If we want to be pedantic we can point out that Edom also actually ceased to exist and did become by compulsion, a part of Israel, under John Hyrcanus. Thus Israel was once again to be seen as an openly conglomerate nation. Furthermore large numbers of what were now seen as Galilean Jews (but some of whom had been Gentiles) had been forced to become Jews in the two centuries before Christ. Having been circumcised they were accepted as Jews even though not born of the twelve tribes).
Paul can even separate Jew from Jew saying, ‘he is not a Jew who is one outwardly — he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and the circumcision is that of the heart’ (Rom 2:28-29 compare v. 26). The true Jew, he says, is the one who is the inward Jew. So he distinguishes physical Israel from true Israel and physical Jew from true Jew. Furthermore he also declares that Gentiles can by this means become true Jews.
In the light of these passages it cannot really be doubted that the early church saw the converted Gentiles as becoming a member of the twelve tribes of Israel. They are ‘the seed of Abraham’ (Gal 3:29); ‘children of promise (as sons of Abraham)’ (Gal 4:28); sons of Abraham in that he is ‘the father of all who believe, though they be in uncircumcision’ (Rom 4:11); ‘spiritually circumcised’ (Rom 2:26-29; Col 2:11); ‘grafted into the true Israel’ (Rom 11:16-24); ‘fellow-citizens with the saints in the commonwealth of Israel’ (Eph 2:19 with 12); ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal 6:16); ‘the chosen race’ (1Pe 2:9); the ‘holy nation’ (1Pe 2:9). What further evidence do we need?
In Romans 4 he further makes clear that Abraham is the father of all who believe, including both circumcised and uncircumcised (Rom 4:9-13). Indeed he says we have been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ (Col 2:11). All who believe are therefore circumcised children of Abraham.
When James writes to ‘the twelve tribes which are of the dispersion’ (Rom 1:1) he is taking the same view. (Jews living away from Palestine were seen as dispersed around the world and were therefore thought of as ‘the dispersion’). There is not a single hint in his letter that he is writing other than to all in the churches. He therefore sees the whole church as having become members of the twelve tribes, and sees them as the true ‘dispersion’, and indeed refers to their ‘assembly’ with the same word used for synagogue (Rom 2:2). But he can also call them ‘the church’ (Rom 5:14).
Yet there is not even the slightest suggestion anywhere in the remainder of his letter that he has just one section of the church in mind. In view of the importance of the subject, had he not been speaking of the whole church he must surely have commented on the attitude of Jewish Christians to Christian Gentiles, especially in the light of the ethical content of his letter. It was a crucial problem of the day. But there is not even a whisper of it in his letter. He speaks as though to the whole church. Unless he was a total separatist (which we know he was not) and treated the ex-Gentile Christians as though they did not exist, this would seem impossible unless he saw all as now making up ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’.
Peter also writes to ‘the elect’ and calls them ‘sojourners of the dispersion’, but when he does speak of ‘Gentiles’ he always means unconverted Gentiles. He clearly assumes that all that come under that heading are not Christians (Rom 2:12; Rom 4:3). The fact that the elect includes ex-Gentiles is confirmed by the fact that he speaks to the recipients of his letter warning them not to fashion themselves ‘according to their former desires in the time of their ignorance’ (1Pe 1:14), and as having been ‘not a people, but are now the people of God’ (1Pe 2:10), and speaks of them as previously having ‘wrought the desire of the Gentiles’ (1Pe 4:3). So it is apparent he too sees all Christians as members of the twelve tribes (as in the example above, ‘the dispersion’ means the twelve tribes scattered around the world).
Good numbers of Gentiles were in fact becoming members of the Jewish faith at that time, and on being circumcised were accepted by the Jews as members of the twelve tribes (as proselytes). In the same way the Apostles, who were all Jews and also saw the pure in Israel, the believing Jews, as God’s chosen people, saw the converted Gentiles as being incorporated into the new Israel, into the true twelve tribes. But they did not see circumcision as necessary, and the reason for that was that they considered that all who believed had been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ.
Peter in his letter confirms all this. He writes to the church calling them ‘a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession’ (1Pe 2:5; 1Pe 2:9), all terms which in Exo 19:5-6 indicate Israel.
Today we may not think in these terms but it is apparent that to the early church to become a Christian was to become a member of the twelve tribes of Israel. That is why there was such a furore over whether circumcision, the covenant sign of the Jew, was necessary for Christians. It was precisely because they were seen as entering the twelve tribes that many saw it as required. Paul’s argument against it is never that Christians do not become members of the twelve tribes (as we have seen he actually argues that they do) but that what matters is spiritual circumcision, not physical circumcision. Thus early on Christians unquestionably saw themselves as the true twelve tribes of Israel.
This receives confirmation from the fact that the seven churches (the universal church) is seen in terms of the seven lampstands in chapter 1. The sevenfold lampstand in the Tabernacle and Temple represented Israel. In the seven lampstands the churches are seen as the true Israel.
Given that fact it is clear that reference to the hundred and forty four thousand from all the tribes of Israel in Revelation 7 is to Christians. But it is equally clear that the numbers are not to be taken literally. The twelve by twelve is stressing who and what they are, not how many there are. There is no example anywhere else in Scripture where God actually selects people on such an exact basis. Even the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal (1Ki 19:18) were a round number based on seven as the number of divine perfection and completeness. The reason for the seemingly exact figures is to demonstrate that God has His people numbered and that not one is missing (compare Num 31:48-49). The message of these verses is that in the face of persecution to come, and of God’s judgments against men, God knows and remembers His own. But they are then described as a multitude who cannot be numbered (only God can number them).
Indeed if this is not so then we have to accept that no member of the tribe of Dan will be saved, for it is noticeable that this description of the twelve tribes is in fact artificial in another respect. While Judah is placed first as the tribe from which Christ came, Dan is omitted, and Manasseh is included as well as Joseph, although Manasseh was the son of Joseph. Thus the omission of Dan is deliberate, while Ephraim, Joseph’s other son, is ‘excluded by name’, but included under Joseph’s name. (This artificiality confirms that the idea of the tribes is not to be taken literally). The exclusion of Dan is probably because he was seen as the tool of the Serpent (Gen 49:17), but this was hardly good reason for the tribe of Dan being refused salvation. And the exclusion of the two names is because the two names were specifically connected with idolatry.
In Deu 29:17-20 the warning had been given that God would ‘blot out his name from under heaven’, when speaking of those who gave themselves up to idolatrous worship and belief, and as we have seen idolatry and uncleanness were central in the warnings to the seven churches. Thus the exclusion of the names of Ephraim and Dan are a further warning against such things.
It is unquestionable that the names of both Ephraim and Dan were specifically connected with idolatry in such a way as to make them distinctive. Hosea declared, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone, their drink is become sour, they commit whoredom continually’ (Hos 4:17-18). This is distinctly reminiscent of the sins condemned in the seven churches. It is true that Ephraim here means the whole of Israel, as often, but John saw the name of Ephraim as besmirched by the connection with idolatry and whoredom.
As for Dan, it was a man of the tribe of Dan who ‘blasphemed the Name’ (Lev 24:11), it was Dan that was first to set up a graven image in rivalry to the Tabernacle (Jdg 18:30) and Dan was the only tribe mentioned by name as being the site of one of the calves of gold set up by Jeroboam, as Amos stresses (Amo 8:14; 1Ki 12:29-30; 2Ki 10:29). Indeed Amos directly connects the name of Dan with ‘the sin of Samaria’. Thus Dan is closely connected with blasphemy and idolatry. And to cap it all ‘Dan will be a serpent in the way, and an adder in the path’ (Gen 49:17). He is the tool of the Serpent. Typologically therefore he is the Judas of the twelve. How could he not then be excluded? It is also voices in Dan and Ephraim which declare the evil coming on Jerusalem (Jer 4:15), closely connecting the two.
That what is excluded is the name of Ephraim and not its people (they are included in Joseph) is significant. It means that the message of these omissions is that the very names of those who partake in idolatry and sexual misbehaviour will be excluded from the new Israel (compare the warnings to the churches, especially Thyatira). The exclusion of the name of Dan is therefore to warn us that those who are not genuine will be excluded from the new Israel. But that does not mean that there were not many Danites who had become Christians, or indeed were accepted as Jews.
So here in Revelation, in the face of the future activity of God against the world, He provides His people with protection, and marks them off as distinctive from those who bear the mark of the Beast. God protects His true people. And there is no good reason for seeing these people as representing other than the church of the current age. The fact is that we are continually liable to persecution, and while not all God’s judgments have yet been visited on the world, we have experienced sufficient to know that we are not excluded. In John’s day this reference to ‘the twelve tribes’ was telling the church that God had sealed them, so that while they must be ready for the persecution to come, they need not fear the coming judgments of God that he will now reveal, for they are under His protection.
In fact the New Testament tells us that all God’s true people are sealed by God. Abraham received circumcision as a seal of ‘the righteousness of (springing from) faith’ (Rom 4:11), but circumcision is replaced in the New Testament by the ‘seal of the Spirit’ (2Co 1:22; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30). It is clear that Paul therefore sees all God’s people as being ‘sealed’ by God in their enjoyment of the indwelling Holy Spirit and this would suggest that John’s description in Revelation 7 is a dramatic representation of that fact. His people have been open to spiritual attack from earliest New Testament days (and before) and it is not conceivable that they have not enjoyed God’s seal of protection on them. Thus the seal here in Revelation refers to the sealing (or if someone considers it future, a re-sealing) with the Holy Spirit of promise. The whole idea behind the scene is in order to stress that all God’s people have been specially sealed.
In Revelation 21 the ‘new Jerusalem’ is founded on twelve foundations which are the twelve Apostles of the Lamb (Rev 21:14), and its gates are the twelve tribes of the children of Israel (Rev 21:12). Indeed Jesus said that he would found his ‘church’ on the Apostles and their statement of faith (Mat 16:18) and the idea behind the word ‘church’ (ekklesia) here was as being the ‘congregation’ of Israel. (The word ekklesia is used of the latter in the Greek Old Testament). Jesus had come to establish the new Israel. Thus from the commencement the church were seen as being the true Israel, composed of both Jew and Gentile who entered within God’s covenant, the ‘new covenant’, as it had been right from the beginning, and they were called ‘the church’ for that very reason.
In countering these arguments it has been astonishingly said that ‘Every reference to Israel in the New Testament refers to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ And another expositor has added the comment, ‘This is true in the Old Testament also.’
Such statements are not only a gross oversimplification, but in fact they are totally untrue. They simply assume what they intend to prove, and are in fact completely incorrect. For as we have seen above if there is one thing that is absolutely sure it is that many who saw themselves as Israelites were not physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Many were descended from the servants of the Patriarchs who went down into Egypt in their ‘households’, and were from a number of nationalities. Others were part of the mixed multitude which left Egypt with Israel (Exo 12:38). They were adopted into Israel, and became Israelites, a situation which was sealed by the covenant.
Indeed it is made quite clear that anyone who was willing to worship God and become a member of the covenant through circumcision could do so and became accepted on equal terms as ‘Israelites’ (Exo 12:47-49). They would then become united with the tribe among whom they dwelt or with which they had connections. That is why there were regulations as to who could enter the assembly or congregation of the Lord, and when (Deu 23:1-8). Later on Gentile proselytes would also be absorbed into Israel. Thus ‘Israel’ was from the start very much a conglomerate, and continued to be so. That is why many Galileans and the Edomites were forced to become Jews and be circumcised once the Jews took over their land. From then on they were seen as part of Israel. And those are only examples that we know of.
Nor is it true that in Paul ‘Israel’ always means physical Israel. When we come to the New Testament Paul can speak of ‘Israel after the flesh’ (1Co 10:18). That suggests that he also conceives of an Israel not ‘after the flesh’. That conclusion really cannot be avoided.
Furthermore, when we remember that outside Romans 9-11 Israel is only mentioned by Paul seven times, and that 1Co 10:18 clearly points to another Israel, one not after the flesh (which has been defined in Rom 11:1-18), and that it is one of the seven verses, and that Gal 6:16 is most satisfactorily seen as signifying the church of Jesus Christ and not old Israel at all (or even converted Israel), the statement must be seen as having little force. In Eph 2:11-22 where he speaks of the ‘commonwealth of Israel’ he immediately goes on to say that in Christ Jesus all who are His are ‘made nigh’, and then stresses that we are no more strangers and sojourners but are genuine fellow-citizens, and are of the household of God. If that does not mean becoming a part of the true Israel it is difficult to see what could. And it is an Israel composed of believers.
Furthermore in the other four references (so now only four out of seven) it is not the present status of Israel that is in mind. The term is simply being used as an identifier in a historical sense in reference to connections with the Old Testament situation. Thus two simply refer to Paul as a natural Israelite (2Co 11:22; Php 3:5), and two refer to ‘the children of Israel’ as connected with Moses (2Co 3:7; 2Co 3:13). Thus the argument that ‘Israel always means Israel’ is not very strong. Again in Hebrews all mentions of ‘Israel’ are historical, referring back to the Old Testament. They refer to Israel in the past, not in the present. In Revelation two mentions out of three are again simply historical, while many would consider that the other actually does refer to the church (Rev 7:4). (Mentions of pre-Christian Israel obviously could not include the ‘church’, the new Israel. But they certainly do include Gentiles who have become Jews).
Indeed, ‘Israel’ in the Old Testament is equally fluid. At one stage it meant the whole of Israel and Judah (e.g. 1Ki 4:1). Then it meant the Northern Kingdom. Then it meant that part of Israel which remained when a large part of the nation had been carried off as exiles, or had been incorporated into Gentile territory (2Ki 17:1). Then it was used by the later prophets to refer to Judah (e.g. Jer 18:6). Paul’s use is, of course, different again for when he uses it of natural Israel he is presumably referring to all Jews everywhere, sometimes including ‘believers’ (Rom 11:11; Rom 11:25), sometimes excluding them (Rom 9:30-31), and sometimes signifying only believers (Rom 9:6).
Thus in Romans 9-11 it is made very clear that Israel can mean more than one thing. When Paul says, ‘they are not all Israel, who are of Israel’ (Rom 9:6) and points out that it is the children of the promise who are counted as the seed (Rom 9:8), we are justified in seeing that there are two Israels in Paul’s mind, one which is the Israel after the flesh, and includes old unconverted Israel, and one which is the Israel of the promise.
And when he says that ‘Israel’ have not attained ‘to the law of righteousness’ while the Gentiles ‘have attained to the righteousness which is of faith’ (Rom 9:30-31) he cannot be speaking of all Israel because it is simply not true that none in Israel have attained to righteousness. Jewish-Christian believers have also attained to the righteousness which is of faith, and have therefore attained the law of righteousness. For many thousands and even tens of thousands had become Christians as we have seen in Acts 1-5. Thus here ‘Israel’ must mean old, unconverted Israel, not all the (so-called) descendants of the Patriarchs, and must actually exclude believing Israel, however we interpret the latter, for ‘Israel did not seek it by faith’ while believing Israel did.
Thus here we see three uses of Israel, each referring to a different entity. One is all the old Israel, which includes both elect and non-elect (Rom 11:11) and is therefore a partly blind Israel (Rom 11:25), one is the Israel of promise (Rom 9:6; called in Rom 11:11 ‘the election’) and one is the old Israel which does not include the Israel of promise, the part of the old Israel which is the blind Israel. The term is clearly fluid and can sometimes refer to one group and sometimes to another.
Furthermore here ‘the Gentiles’ must mean those who have come to faith and not all Gentiles. It cannot mean all Gentiles, for it speaks of those who have ‘attained to the righteousness of faith’ (which was what old Israel failed to obtain when it strove after it). It means believing Gentiles. Thus that term is also fluid. (In contrast, in 1 Peter ‘Gentiles’ represents only those who are unconverted. Thus all words like these must be interpreted in their contexts).
When we are also told that such Gentiles who have come to faith have become ‘Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise’ (Gal 3:29) we are justified in seeing these converted Gentiles as having become part of the new Israel, along with the converted Jews. They are now actually stated to be ‘the seed of Abraham’. That is why in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:28). This clarifies the picture of the olive tree. Old unconverted Israel are cut out of it, the converted Gentiles are grafted into it. Thus old Israel are no longer God’s people while the converted Gentiles are. There is a ‘new nation’ (Mat 21:43; 1Pe 2:9) composed of the remnant of Israel, along with proselytised Gentiles.
It may then be asked, ‘What then does Paul mean when he says that ‘all Israel will be saved’?’ (Rom 11:26). It clearly cannot mean literally ‘all’ of old Israel, both past and present, for Scripture has made quite clear that not all of them will be saved. Let us consider the possibilities:
1) All the people of a nation have been saved at one point in time. It would not be in accordance with God’s revealed way of working. But more importantly it would also make nonsense of those many passages where God’s final judgment is poured out on Israel, and it is therefore clear that all Israel will not be saved. How can all Israel be saved and yet face His judgment?
2) Does he then mean ‘all the true Israel’, those elected in God’s purposes, ‘the remnant according to the election of grace’ (Rom 11:5), who will be saved along with the fullness of the Gentiles? That is certainly a possibility if we ignore all the Scriptures that we have looked at and see believing Jews as not made one with believing Gentiles (as Ephesians 2 says they were). But if it is to happen in the end times it will require a final revival among the Jews in the end days bringing them to Christ. For there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which men can be saved. We would certainly not want to deny the possibility of God doing that. That may be why He has gathered the old nation back to the country of Israel. But that does not mean that God will deal with them as a separate people.
3) Or does it mean ‘all Israel’ who are part of the olive tree, including both Jews and the fullness of the Gentiles? All the new Israel, made up of the fullness of the Gentiles and the fullness of the Jews? That seems to be its most probable significance, and most in accordance with what we have seen above. After all, ‘all Israel’, if it includes the Gentiles, could not be saved until the fullness of the Gentiles had come in.
It is important in this regard to consider what Paul’s message was in Romans 9-11. It was that God began with Abraham and then began cutting off many of his seed, leaving the remnant according to the election of grace, those whom He foreknew. The entity of Israel was found in those whom He foreknew. Then He began incorporating others in the persons of believing Gentiles as we have seen, and these increased in proportion through Christ, and all who believed became members of the olive tree. Thus this was now ‘all Israel’, those whom God had elected from eternity past to be His people.
But what in fact Paul is finally seeking to say is that in the whole salvation history God’s purposes will not be frustrated, and that in the final analysis all whom He has chosen and foreknown (Rom 11:2) will have come to Him, whether Jew or Gentile.
In the light of all this it is difficult to see how we can deny that in the New Testament all who truly believed were seen as becoming a part of the new Israel, the ‘Israel of God’.
But some ask, ‘if the church is Israel why does Paul only tell us so rarely?’. The answer is twofold. Firstly the danger that could arise from the use of the term, causing people to be confused. And secondly because he actually does so most of the time in his own way. For another way of referring to Israel in the Old Testament was as ‘the congregation’ (LXX church). Thus any reference to the ‘church’ does indicate the new Israel.
But does this mean that old Israel can no longer be seen as having a part in the purposes of God. If we mean as old Israel then the answer is yes. As old Israel they are no longer relevant to the purposes of God for the true Israel are the ones who are due to receive the promises of God. But if we mean as ‘converted and becoming part of believing Israel’ then the answer is that God in His mercy will surely yet have a purpose for them by winning many of them to Christ in the end days. Any member of old Israel can become a part of the olive tree by being grafted in again. And there is a welcome to the whole of Israel if they will believe in Christ. Nor can there be any future for them as being used in the purposes of God until they believe in Christ. And then if they do they will become a part of the whole, not superior to others, or inferior to others, but brought in on equal terms as Christians and members of ‘the congregation’.
It may well be that God has brought Israel back into the land because he intends a second outpouring of the Spirit like Pentecost (and Joe 2:28-29). But if so it is in order that they might become Christians. It is in order that they might become a part of the true Israel, the ‘congregation (church) of Jesus Christ’. For God may be working on old Israel doing His separating work in exactly the same ways as He constantly works on old Gentiles, moving them from one place to another in order to bring many of them to Christ. It is not for us to tell Him how He should do it. But nor must we give old Israel privileges that God has not given them.
But what then is the consequence of what we have discussed? Why is it so important? The answer is that it is important because if it is the fact that true Christians today are the only true people of God that means that all the Old Testament promises relate to them, not by being ‘spiritualised’, but by them being interpreted in terms of a new situation. Much of the Old Testament has to be seen in the light of new situations. It is doubtful if today anyone really thinks that swords and spears will be turned into ploughshares and pruninghooks. However we see it that idea has to be modernised. (Tanks being turned into tractors?). In the same way therefore we have to ‘modernise’ in terms of the New Testament many of the Old Testament promises. Jerusalem must become the Jerusalem that is above (Gal 4:25-26; Heb 12:22). The sacrifices must become spiritual sacrifices e.g. of praise and thanksgiving (Heb 13:15; 1Pe 2:5; compare also Rom 12:1; Rom 15:16; Php 2:17; Php 4:18). And so on. But Israel continues on in the true church (congregation) of Christ, being composed of all who have truly submitted to the Messiah.
Note. Literal sacrifices in the Old Testament could not possibly be repeated in the future in any sense that is genuine. The so-called memorial sacrifices of some expositors are a totally new invention. They are certainly not what the prophets intended. So it is no less ‘spiritualising’ to call them memorial sacrifices than it is to speak of spiritual sacrifices. And can anyone really believe, if they open their eyes, that in a world where the lion lies down with the lamb, and the wolves and the sheep are mates, only man is vile enough to kill animals? It does not bear thinking about. It goes against all the principles that lie behind the idea. Whereas when we recognise that that is an idealised picture of the heavenly Kingdom and the new Earth where all is peace and death is no more then it all fits together.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Rom 11:36. For of him, &c. Of him, as the original author; through him, as the gracious preserver; and to or for him, as the ultimate end,are all things: For his pleasure all things were created; by his providence all things are preserved; to his gloryall things terminate. Antoninus, speaking of nature (by which he evidently means God), has an expression which one would imagine he had borrowed from this of St. Paul, , , , “All things are of thee, in thee, and to thee.” Thus, says Mr. Locke, St. Paul concludes, with a very solemn epiphonema, that admirable evangelical discourse to the church at Rome, which had taken up the eleven foregoing chapters. It was addressed to the two sorts of converts, viz. Gentiles and Jews; into which, as into two distinct bodies, he all along through this Epistle divides all mankind, and considers them as so divided into two separate corporation. 1. As to the Gentiles, he endeavours to satisfy them, that though they for their apostacy from God to idolatry, and the worship of false gods, had been abandoned by God, had lived in sin and blindness, without God in the world, strangers from the knowledge and acknowledgment of him, yet that the mercy of God through Jesus Christ was extended to them, whereby there was a way now opened to them to become the people of God. For since no man could be saved by his own righteousness, no, not the Jews themselves, by the deeds of the law, the only way to salvation, both for Jews and Gentiles, was by faith in Jesus Christ. Nor had the Jews any other way now to continue themselves the people of God, than by receiving the Gospel; which way was opened also to the Gentiles, and they were as freely admitted into the visible kingdom of God, now erected under Jesus Christ, as the Jews, and upon the sole terms of believing. So that there was no need at all for the Gentiles to be circumcised to become Jews, that they might be partakers of the benefits of the Gospel. 2. As to the Jews, the Apostle’s other great aim in the foregoing discourse is, to remove the offence which the Jews took at the Gospel, because the Gentiles were received into the church as the people of God, and were allowed to be subjects of the kingdom of the Messiah. To bring them to a better temper, he shews them, from the sacred scripture, that they could not be saved by the deeds of the law, and therefore the doctrine of righteousness by faith ought not to be so strange a thing to them. And as to their being for their unbelief rejected from being the people of God, and the Gentiles taken-in in their room, he shews plainly, that this was foretold them in the Old Testament; and that herein God did them no injustice. He was Sovereign over all mankind, and might choose whom he would to be his peculiar people, with the same freedom that he chose the posterity of Abraham among all the nations of the earth, and of that race chose the descendants of Jacob before those of his elder brother Esau, and that before they had a being, or were capable of doing good or evil. In all which discourse of his, it is plain the election spoken of has for its object only nations or collective bodies politic in this world, and not particular persons, in reference to their eternal state in the world to come.
Inferences.It appears from this prophetic chapter, as well as from many striking predictions in other parts of Scripture, that the Jews will hereafter be restored to the favour and protection of their God, and will become with the Gentiles one fold, under one shepherd, Jesus Christ. For this purpose they are remarkably preserved a distinct and separate people from all the nations of the earth; and nothing can afford a more striking proof of the truth of the Christian religion, than their present subsistence as a people, together with all the peculiar circumstances of their state and dispersion. With a view to them we may observe, that some evidences of the truth of our holy faith are not weakened, but rather gain force by length of time. Jesus often spoke of many coming from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; that is, to partake of the privileges of the Gospel, and the blessings of the Messiah’s kingdom: so long therefore as there are Gentiles in the world, who thankfully embrace the Gospel, this declaration is fulfilled; and the longer it is since these words were spoken, the more are they verified; and every accession to the church of Christ from among ignorant and darkened Gentiles, is a fresh confirmation of the truth of his doctrine. The dispersion of the Jews, the longer it lasts, still more and more strengthens the evidences of the Christian religion; it is the more remarkable; it is a plainer and more affecting token of divine displeasure against them; it affords greater assurance that the Messiah is already come; and it is rendered the more impossible for any man to prove himself of the tribe of Judah, and the family of David, whence the Messiah was to arise. For these reasons their present dispersion is prolonged, and may it be duly attended to by all to whom the consideration of it may be of use!
St. Paul directs us to consider these things as warnings; Because of unbelief they were broken off and thou standest by faith: be not high-minded, but fear, &c. Rom 11:20. For if we improve not our privileges, the glory may depart from us also. The seven churches of Asia in the book of Revelation were warned, and most of them threatened with the removal of their candlestick, unless they speedily repented, and did their first works. Many Christian churches, planted by the apostles of Jesus, and watered by their fellow-labourers, have fallen to decay and ruin: the name and title of Christian will not save particular persons in the day of judgment; nor will the name of Jesus or Christian alone secure churches and societies in this world. There should be not only the leaves of a fair profession, but also fruits of love and peace, and all the branches of righteousness and true holiness. Christians should have heavenly minds, and their lives should be adorned with acts of meekness, patience, self-denial, and zeal for each other’s welfare. Christ will dwell with such. They honour him, and he will honour them with a distinguished care and protection.
We learn from the Apostle’s arguments, that as in past ages the Jews had been of great service in upholding religion in the world, and from them at length it was brought to the Gentiles; so when in the end the Jews are converted to the faith of Christ, it will be perhaps in some measure through the Gentiles; and probably upon some more general conversion of the latter than has yet been. See Rom 11:30-31. But whenever this general conversion of the Jews to the faith of Jesus takes place, they will become Christians indeed, and their fondness for the rites of the Mosaic law will cease, that they and the Gentiles may become one people and one flock.
We have good reason to wish and pray for that great event,that the fulness of the Gentiles may be brought in. In the mean time, we should both labour for the conversion of ignorant Gentiles, and do what lies in our power to excite the people of the Jews to emulation, by the simplicity of our worship, the purity of our faith, and the holiness of our lives.
From the state of things represented to us in this chapter, we cannot fail to admire the exceeding riches of the wisdom and goodness of God, who has graciously afforded mankind in all ages helps, more or less, for knowing the great truths of religion. God ever spoke to all by the secret inspiration of his Holy Spirit: when that was not duly attended to, and the danger of universal ignorance became great, he separated a family, that of Abraham, from the rest of the world; and of a part of it he made a great nation, to whom he gave a law; and who thereby were set up as a lamp upon a hill, to lighten the world around them. Among them, by his grace and by frequent interpositions of his wise and powerful providence, religion was maintained, and they were kept a distinct nation, enjoying many privileges until the Messiah came, and religion was spread far and wide in the nations of the earth, according to promises made long before: and then the Jews generally rejecting that blessing, God cast them off from being his people, as they had been, and poured down upon them dreadful tokens of his displeasure; yet not destroying them utterly, but making use of them, even under afflictions, to support the truth of the mission and authority of his only-begotten Son, whom they had crucified.
Nor is there herein any injustice, or unkindness; for still they are provoked to jealousy by those who are taken in their room: and in this respect they now enjoy an advantage with regard to religion, beyond what the Gentiles had formerly. For then it was the nation of the Jews only, to whom God was known; and many of the nations of the earth were remote from them. But the unbelieving Jews, for the most part, live among or near the followers of Jesus, and have better opportunities to inform themselves of the principles of their religion, than the Gentiles had of old to know that of the Israelites.
And the wisdom of divine Providence in the former and the latter dispensation is admirable, as the Apostle observes at the end of this chapter, Rom 11:30-36 on addressing himself to Gentile Christians; a passage, whence we may conclude with St. James at the council at Jerusalem, that known unto God are all his works from the beginning. Act 15:18.
It may moreover be reasonably supposed, that it will be highly delightful in the heavenly state to know and observe the various methods of divine Providence, relating to his creatures in the world where we have lived; particularly to observe the manifold designs of wisdom and goodness, with regard to the concerns of religion.
A wise, pious, and discerning person has now great delight and profitable entertainment in reviewing these works of divine Grace and Providence, as recorded in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament; but the discoveries in a future state must be incomparably more full and complete, and consequently more delightful. We shall then see the overspreading deluge of ignorance in some places and ages, the wonderful steps by which light was restored, and all the virtue of the instruments raised up and employed by God; the faithful and disinterested zeal with which they served God, and promoted the welfare of their fellow-creatures; and how even afflictive events subserved beneficial designs. And though such extensive knowledge should not be the portion of those who are finally separated from God, yet there will be a remembrance of things past; what men have done and neglected to do; what means of knowledge were offered them in this world; what convictions they had of duty; what helps they enjoyed for securing a holy and virtuous life and conduct, and strengthening them against temptations; in short, to bring them to Christ and eternal salvation,and how they failed to improve those many advantages!
How piercing must it be, in the place of torment, for a descendant of Abraham, who lived in the time of our Lord, to recollect the gracious words he heard from his mouth! That though Jesus taught in the streets of his city, and in the most winning manner promised everlasting life to such as believed in and obeyed him; and though he performed numerous miracles, healing and beneficial, suited to the goodness of his doctrine, and tokens of inexpressible mildness and benevolence,yet he despised and abused this amiable Person! And though he knew that the prophets had spoken of a great Deliverer to arise among them, and it was the prevailing opinion that that was the very time prefixed for his coming; he would not hearken to him, nor regard him, because of some groundless prejudices, and too strong an affection for worldly possessions and enjoyments.
In like manner, to how many others also will not the recollection of religious, of Christian privileges, not improved, but rejected and abused, be matter of torment and vexation!For instance, Children of pious parents, who set at nought all their counsel, and will have none of their reproofs! Servants, who are averse to the order and restraint of religious families, and offended at daily devotions and frequent readings of the Scripture, or other books of piety; who choose the habitations of the wicked, where there is not so much as a form of godliness, or an appearance of religion, and prefer the company and manners of the dissolute, who are a reproach to human nature!A Christian, partaking in all the ordinances of the Gospel, yet acting contrary to the obligations he is under!A minister in God’s house, shewing to others the way to salvation, but not walking in it himself!
How grievous must the recollection of such advantages be hereafter, if finally abused and disregarded! What consolation can then be given to the trembling souls of men?Alas, the sad reflection on their own folly will be unavoidable, and for ever incurable!
May we therefore be wise to know and mind the things of our peace, now in this our day!Securing time, while we have it, for serious reflections on our conduct and our advantages, and comparing our light and knowledge with our actions and purposes! For between these there ought, there must be an agreement, or miserable will be the consequence. Where much is given, much may and will be expected: and the servant who knew his Lord’s will, and did it not, shall be beaten with many stripes. Luk 12:47.
These are certain truths:these are things which will some time afford either a pleasing and comfortable, or an afflictive and sorrowful recollection to the soul. It is an aweful and awakening observation of our Lord:This is the condemnation, That light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil, Joh 3:19. If any of us should perish, have we not reason to dread this aggravated condemnation?For we must be sensible that we have had sufficient instruction to assure us, that things above are preferable to things on this earth: that nothing therefore ought so to divert and engage us, as to prevent our laying up to ourselves treasures in heaven; and that we ought to order our present concerns, and the whole of our conversation, in such a manner as may best promote our most important interests,the everlasting salvation and happiness of our souls. See Lardner, and on Rom 11:11.
REFLECTIONS.1st, Nothing could be more grating to the Jews than this subject of their rejection; and some one might say, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid.
1. Though some are cast off through unbelief, yet all are not unbelievers.
2. If the nation of Jews in general be at present abandoned through their rejection of the Gospel, the Gentiles are called into the Messiah’s kingdom.
3. The time will come when the Jews shall be brought back, and admitted into the peculiar church of the Messiah.
[1.] Though some are cast off through unbelief, yet all are not unbelievers: of this St. Paul was himself an instance. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin; and though none shewed greater bitterness against the Gospel, yet have I obtained mercy; and multitudes besides, of the Jewish people, share the same blessing, for God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew would believe, and be faithful to his grace: and these were more than might be at first imagined, as was the case in the days of Elias, when, on account of their general defection to idolatry, and persecution of God’s prophets, that zealous reformer complained to God as if he was left alone, and his life daily in jeopardy; and, from the melancholy appearances could not but conclude that the people were ripe for ruin. But God informs him that, bad as things were, he had still seven thousand faithful worshippers, who had not bowed to Baal; even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace,who accede to the election of grace by believing. Note; (1.) There are many more faithful souls, than we, looking round on the general apostacy, are ready to suppose. (2.) When religion is out of countenance, it is a great thing to dare to be singular, and not bow the knee to Baal.
What then is the case? Why the fact is evident, Israel hath not attained that which he seeketh for; the reason of which is given, chap. Rom 9:31-32 but the election hath attained it, through faith in Jesus, and the rest were blinded, left to their impenitence and unbelief, and perishing by the sentence of that law, for their obedience to which they expected justification before God. Note; (1.) They who trust in whole or in part on their works for justification, make Christ to have died in vain, and the grace of God of no effect. (2.) They who trust on their own righteousness, are ever most hardened against the Gospel method of salvation.
In proof of what he had alleged, terrible as it might appear to some, he appeals to the Scriptures, according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear unto this day. They are sunk into stupidity and insensibility, and in just judgment for their rejection of all the means, mercies, and corrections vouchsafed to them, especially for their wilful unbelief of the Gospel, God has abandoned them to a reprobate mind. And, to the same effect, David saith, when speaking of the enemies of the Messiah, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompence unto them. The altar, and all the ritual service on which they depended, would prove the means of their ruin; or those bounties of Providence, which they abused to pride and luxury, should intoxicate them, and, like drunken men, for the punishment of their infidelity, they should stumble into perdition. Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see; since they hate the light, they shall be left in blindness; and bow down their back alway, under perpetual bondage and servitude, enslaved by the powers of the earth, and more enslaved by worldly-mindedness; by sin and Satan. Note; (1.) Of all judgments, spiritual ones are most to be dreaded, and yet are usually least perceived. (2.) They who mind earthly things, cannot but walk in darkness.
[2.] Though the Jews were cast off for a while from the peculiar kingdom of the Messiah, the Gentiles were called into the church.
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall, utterly and irrecoverably? God forbid: but rather, so hath God ordered it in his providence, that through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles (see Act 13:46-47.), for to provoke them to jealousy; that, ashamed to be outdone by the Gentiles, they may be stirred up to a noble emulation. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, God in his infinite wisdom and mysterious designs, making the apostacy and obstinacy of the Jews the occasion of spreading his Gospel the sooner among the Gentiles, whom he is pleased to enrich with the abundance of his grace; how much more will the Gentiles be confirmed in the faith, and the multitude of converts increase when they shall see their fulness, the restoration of the dispersed Jews to their forfeited privileges, when at the last they shall be turned to the Lord? For I speak to you Gentiles, for your comfort and caution, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, particularly appointed of God to preach the Gospel to you; I magnify mine office, I glory in my employment, and bless God for having honoured me so far as to appoint me thereunto. And this I say, If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, to outstrip the Gentiles, ashamed to be exceeded by them in faith and holiness, and might thus save some of them, by leading them to Christ for pardon, grace, and eternal life; for, as I said, if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, the Gospel, through their infidelity, being sent unto the Gentiles, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? How surprising and delightful will that great event be, when the Jews in general shall be converted to Christ, and restored to the church as men raised from the dead; and their conversion inspire the Gentiles with fresh life and vigour! For if the first-fruit be holy, and some few converts of the Jewish people now appear the pledges and earnest of what God will do for the nation hereafter, the lump is also holy, and they shall at last be consecrated as a nation to God: and if the root be holy, Abraham and the patriarchs, from whom the Jews descended, considered as their federal head, to whom and his seed the promises were made, so are the branches; they have a relative holiness in virtue of their descent; and, though at present their unbelief cuts them off from all the privileges of the covenant, yet for the fathers’ sake, in future ages God’s love to them, as a nation, shall appear, and they shall again be received into the bosom of his church. And if some of the branches be broken off, for their unbelief, and thou, a Gentile, being a wild olive-tree, by birth an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, and a stranger to the covenants of promise, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree, admitted in common with Abraham’s natural descendants, who believe, to share in all the blessings and privileges of the peculiar covenant of the Messiah, boast not against the branches, looking down with scorn on the Jews, who for their infidelity are broken off; but if thou boast, and grow proud of thy advancement, remember thou bearest not the root, but the root thee, and all the mercies thou enjoyest are from the Jews; from them, according to the flesh, Christ descended; the first preachers of the Gospel were of their nation; and all thy church privileges are derived from Abraham, the great father of the faithful: therefore this people, though now fallen, must not be trampled upon. Thou wilt say, then, perhaps, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in; I was preferred to them, and have reason to esteem myself above them. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off; it was not on account of any goodness in you, but because of their own infidelity; and thou standest by faith, not holding your privileges on account of any descent, but through God’s free grace in Christ Jesus: and therefore all boasting is excluded. Be not then high-minded: but fear, lest you also fall, through the same example of unbelief. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee; if the Gentiles imitated their pride and unbelief, they might much more apprehend he would deal with them in the same manner, and deprive them of all the privileges to which he had admitted them. Behold therefore, and admire, the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, he hath exercised just severity, cutting them off from his visible church, and depriving them of all the privileges of his peculiar people; but toward thee, unworthy as thou art, he hath shewn the most transcendant goodness, admitting thee, a despised idolatrous Gentile, into his kingdom, and will continue to bless thee, if thou continue in his goodness, and do not abuse the merciful dispensation, under which you at present stand, by pride and infidelity: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off: and no nominal profession of Christianity, if the heart prove apostate, will secure any man from the wrath of God.
[3.] There is still hope in the end, that all Israel, as a nation, notwithstanding their present rejection, shall at last be converted and saved. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: and when they receive the Gospel, and believe in Jesus as the Messiah, shall be readmitted into the visible church, for God is able to graff them in again, as the children of believing Abraham. Nor is this at all inconceivable or improbable; for if thou wert cut out of the olive-tree, which is wild by nature, sprung from the Gentile stock, which was out of the peculiar covenant, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive-tree, which is like grafting a wild scion on a good tree, how much more shall these which be the natural branches, and descendants of Abraham, be graffed into their own olive-tree, and be received into the Gospel church, which was once wholly confined to their people and nation,if they believe? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; puffed up with an opinion of your own excellence, and fancying that the favour of God is henceforth to be confined to you alone,) that blindness in part is happened to Israel, and they are left to their unbelief for a while, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, when in the latter days the nations of the earth shall, in a more general manner than ever become obedient to the faith. And so all Israel shall be saved; in general they shall be brought into the Gospel-church, and converted to the Lord: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; the adored Messiah in the last days shall go forth in the power of his Gospel, and by the efficacy of his word and Spirit shall bring the sons of Jacob, the Jews at large, into his Gospel-church. For this is my covenant unto them; and he will fulfil his promises, as will be seen in the latter day; when I shall take away their sins, freely pardoning, for his name’s sake, all that is past, and receiving into the arms of his love all that shall embrace in faith the true Messiah.
Upon the whole, then, the state of the case stands thus: As concerning the Gospel, they are at present enemies to it, and permitted so to be for your sakes, that the Gospel might be the sooner and farther diffused through the Gentile world (Act 13:46-47.). But as touching the election of them as a nation to be his peculiar people, they are beloved for the Fathers’ sakes; and though for the present abandoned, yet there is still mercy in store for the nation. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance; God having made his promises to Israel, as a chosen nation, they shall assuredly be called again into his church. For as ye in times past have not believed God, but lived without him in the world, serving stocks and stones, yet have now obtained mercy, through God’s boundless grace admitted into the fellowship and privileges of the Gospel, through their unbelief, who put that Gospel from them: even so have these also now not believed, have been left to their infidelity, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy; provoked to emulation by you, and led by faith to embrace the same Redeemer, through whom the Gentiles have found acceptance with God. And this conversion of the Jews is at least as likely, and will be as sure, as the conversion of the idolatrous Gentiles. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief; both Jews and Gentiles have been left by turns out of the visible church; that he might glorify the riches of his grace towards both, and have mercy upon all; upon the body of Jews and Gentiles in general, making them at last one fold under one Shepherd.
2nd, Having evidently reconciled the rejection of the Jews with the justice and goodness of God, and shewn that there was mercy yet in store for them; in the view of this astonishing dispensation the Apostle breaks out, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! Farther the Apostle dares not pry into the divine counsels, but stands admiring on the ocean’s brink, and cries, O the depth of the riches of that grace, which both Jews and Gentiles experience, unworthy as they are of the least of it! What wisdom and knowledge appear in the contrivance of this admirable scheme, planned in the divine mind, to make even the rejection of the Jews subservient to the calling of the Gentiles; and their conversion, the means at last of restoring the Jews as a nation to the divine favour. These counsels are too deep for us to fathom; and the methods which in his providence he takes to effect his own purposes, are beyond our ken; we are lost in the labyrinth, of which he who is infinite in wisdom only holds the clue. For who hath known the mind of the Lord? what creature ever pried into the deep things of God, or could fathom his infinite wisdom? Or who hath been his counsellor? nor man nor angel was consulted in planning his designs of grace. Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? Who can claim any thing by right from him? He is debtor neither to Jew nor Gentile; and how then dare any arraign his procedure, or say unto him, What doest thou? For of him, and through him, and to him are all things; all things in nature and providence own him their former and upholder, their efficient cause and ultimate end; to whom therefore it is most fit, that the saints upon earth, and the exalted spirits in heaven, should ascribe glory for ever! and all who have tasted of his grace, will add their joyful Amen! Note; Though we have the deepest insight into the mysteries of grace, the wisest must own, that they know but a part of God’s ways. There are many things which our short line cannot fathom. Our business therefore is to acquiesce in the divine determinations; not to cavil, but to admire and adore!
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 11:36 does not apply to all the three foregoing questions (Hofmann), but simply the last of them is established by the connective ( for truly ) as regards its negative contents: “No one has beforehand given to God,” etc.
All things are from God ( primal cause ), in so far as all things have proceeded from God’s creative power; through God ( ground of mediate agency ), in so far as nothing exists without God’s continuous operation; for God ( final cause ), in so far as all things serve the ends of God (not merely: the honour of God, as many think). Comp. 1Co 8:6 ; Col 1:16 ; Heb 2:10 . These passages speak quite against the opinion, that in the present passage the relation of Father, Son, and Spirit (Olshausen, Philippi, Thomasius, Jatho, Krummacher, following Ambrosiaster, Hilary, Toletus, Estius, Calovius, and others) is expressed a view which is also quite remote from the connection. The context speaks simply of God (the Father), to whom no one can have given anything beforehand, etc., because He, as Bengel aptly expresses it, is Origo et Cursus et Terminus rerum omnium . This may be recognised by the exegesis that has the deepest faith in Scripture without any rationalistic idiosyncrasy, as the example of Bengel himself shows. With reason neither Chrysostom, nor Oecumenius, nor Theophylact, neither Erasmus, nor Melanchthon, nor Calvin, nor Beza have expressed any reference to the Trinity in their explanations; but Augustine has this reference, against which also Tholuck, Hofmann, and Gess ( v. d. Pers. Chr . p. 158) have been sufficiently unbiassed to declare themselves.
] God is mediate cause of all things by His upholding and ruling . Comp. Heb 2:18 . To refer, with others, this statement to creation (Theophylact: ; comp. Oecumenius, Rckert, Fritzsche), would fail to bring out at least any popular distinction from , and which is decisive against such reference that would be affirmed of the Father which pertains to the Son ( Col 1:16 ; 1Co 8:6 ; Joh 1:2 ). Theodoret rightly remarks: .
] All things serve Him (comp. Heb 2:10 ) as their ultimate end . This is explained by Oecumenius, Theophylact, and Fritzsche of the upholding ( ). On the whole, comp. what Marcus Antoninus, iv. 23, says of : , , , and Gataker in loc .
] sc . ; as at Rom 16:27 : the befitting glory. Gal 1:5 ; Eph 3:21 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
REFLECTIONS
Pause, Reader! and, beholding the rejection of Israel as a nation, after all their high privileges; consider what may be, what will be, the rejection of any, and of every mere nominal Church, which hath the form, but is destitute of the power, of godliness! To this our guilty sinful land, and to every Christ-despising generation like the present, how awful that Scripture sounds, in trembling accents: If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee!
Almighty Sovereign, Lord of Heaven and earth! give thy redeemed grace to receive all thy wise, and unerring appointments, with humble joy, and reverence. All must be right; because thou, Lord, hast done it. Let everyone taught of God, enter into a full apprehension of that most precious truth : Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty, Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints!
And, amidst all the discouragements of the present day, though like the Prophet we find cause to mourn in secret, at the depressed state of Zion; yet let this always comfort: even now at the present time, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Reader! forget not that it is grace, yea, all grace. May you and I have grape, to give our God all the glory!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
Ver. 36. For of him ] As the efficient cause, and “through him” as the administering cause, and “to him” as the final cause, are all things. A wise philosopher could say, that man is the end of all in a semicircle; that is, all things in the world are made for him, and he is made for God.
To whom be glory for ever ] God, saith one, counts the works and fruits that come from us to be ours, because the judgment and resolution of will whereby we do them is ours. This he doth to encourage us. But because the grace whereby we judge and will aright comes from God, ascribe we all to him. So shall he lose no praise, we no encouragement.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
36. ] For (ground of Rom 11:33-35 . Well may all this be true of Him, for) of Him (in their origin: ‘quod dicit, “ex ipso,” hoc ipsum, quod sumus indicat:’ Orig [112] Chrys. somewhat differently: see above on Rom 11:33 ), and through Him (in their subsistence and disposal: ‘ “per Ipsum,” quod per ejus providentiam dispensamur in vita:” Orig [113] ), and unto Him (‘ “in Ipso,” (so Vulg. and some other vss.) quod perfectio omnium et finis in Ipso erit tunc, cum erit Deus omnia in omnibus:’ Orig [114] ) are all things (not only, though chiefly, men , but the whole creation). Origen remarks, ‘Vides, quomodo in ultimis ostendit, quod in omnibus qu supra dixit signaverit, mysterium Trinitatis. Sicut enim in prsenti loco quod ait, “quoniam ex Ipso, et per Ipsum, et in Ipso sunt omnia:” convenit illis dictis, qu idem Apostolus in aliis memorat locis, cum dicit ( 1Co 8:6 ): “Unus Deus Pater ex quo omnia, et unus Dominus noster Jesus Christus, per quem omnia:” et item in Spiritu Dei dicit revelari omnia, et per hc designat, in omnibus esse providentiam Trinitatis: ita et cum dicit “altitudo divitiarum,” Patrem, ex quo omnia dicit esse, significat: et sapienti altitudinem, Christum, qui est sapientia ejus, ostendit: et scienti altitudinem, Spiritum Sanctum, qui etiam alta Dei novit, declarat.’ And, if this be rightly understood, not of a formal allusion to the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity, but of an implicit reference (as Thol.) to the three attributes of Jehovah respectively manifested to us by the three coequal and coeternal Persons, there can hardly be a doubt of its correctness. The objection of De Wette, that not , but , would be the designation of the Holy Spirit and His relation to the Universe, applies to that part of Origen’s Commentary which rests on the Vulg. in ipso and to the idea of a formal recognition : but not to Tholuck’s remark, illustrated from . . , Eph 4:6 , as referring to , , . Only those who are dogmatically prejudiced can miss seeing that, though St. Paul has never definitively expressed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in a definite formula, yet he was conscious of it as a living reality.
[112] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
[113] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
[114] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 11:36 . . . . Strictly speaking, the confirms the last truth man’s absolute dependence on God by making it part of a wider generalisation. : from Him, as their source; : through Him, as the power by whose continuous energy the world is sustained and ruled; : unto Him, as their goal, for whose glory they exist. A reference of any kind to the Trinity is out of the question. It is a question, however, whether means “all things” in the sense of the universe ( cf. 1Co 8:6 , Col 1:16 , Heb 2:10 ) or whether it is not limited by the article to all the things which have just been in contemplation, the whole marvellous action of God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge, as interpreted by the Apostle in regard to the work of redemption (for an example of in this sense see 2Co 5:18 ). I incline to the last view. The universe of grace, with all that goes on in it for the common salvation of Jew and Gentile, is of God and through God and to God. To Him be the glory which such a display of wisdom and love demands.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
through. App-104.
to. App-104.
glory. See Rom 1:23.
for ever. App-151. a. This verse is the Figure of speech Polyptoton (App-6), the pronoun “Him” being introduced by three different prepositions, ek, dia, and eis.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
36.] For (ground of Rom 11:33-35. Well may all this be true of Him, for) of Him (in their origin:-quod dicit, ex ipso, hoc ipsum, quod sumus indicat: Orig[112] Chrys. somewhat differently: see above on Rom 11:33), and through Him (in their subsistence and disposal:- per Ipsum, quod per ejus providentiam dispensamur in vita: Orig[113]), and unto Him ( in Ipso, (so Vulg. and some other vss.) quod perfectio omnium et finis in Ipso erit tunc, cum erit Deus omnia in omnibus: Orig[114]) are all things (not only, though chiefly, men,-but the whole creation). Origen remarks, Vides, quomodo in ultimis ostendit, quod in omnibus qu supra dixit signaverit, mysterium Trinitatis. Sicut enim in prsenti loco quod ait, quoniam ex Ipso, et per Ipsum, et in Ipso sunt omnia: convenit illis dictis, qu idem Apostolus in aliis memorat locis, cum dicit (1Co 8:6): Unus Deus Pater ex quo omnia, et unus Dominus noster Jesus Christus, per quem omnia: et item in Spiritu Dei dicit revelari omnia, et per hc designat, in omnibus esse providentiam Trinitatis: ita et cum dicit altitudo divitiarum, Patrem, ex quo omnia dicit esse, significat: et sapienti altitudinem, Christum, qui est sapientia ejus, ostendit: et scienti altitudinem, Spiritum Sanctum, qui etiam alta Dei novit, declarat. And, if this be rightly understood,-not of a formal allusion to the Three Persons in the Holy Trinity, but of an implicit reference (as Thol.) to the three attributes of Jehovah respectively manifested to us by the three coequal and coeternal Persons,-there can hardly be a doubt of its correctness. The objection of De Wette, that not , but , would be the designation of the Holy Spirit and His relation to the Universe, applies to that part of Origens Commentary which rests on the Vulg. in ipso and to the idea of a formal recognition: but not to Tholucks remark, illustrated from . . , Eph 4:6, as referring to , , . Only those who are dogmatically prejudiced can miss seeing that, though St. Paul has never definitively expressed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in a definite formula, yet he was conscious of it as a living reality.
[112] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
[113] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
[114] Origen, b. 185, d. 254
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 11:36. , of Him, and through Him, and to Him) The Origin, Course, and End of [The Source from whom come, the Agent through whom is maintained the continuance of, the End for whom are] all things, is here denoted, comp. 1Co 8:6. [Furthermore, , refers to riches; , to wisdom; , to knowledge.-V. g.]- , the glory) of the Riches, Wisdom, Knowledge. [Along with this doxology to Omnipotence, is included the praise of Divine Wisdom and Love, from which the creatures derive their strength, understanding, and blessedness.-V. g.]-. The final word, with which the feeling of the apostle, when he has said all, makes a termination.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 11:36
Rom 11:36
For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things.-All things that we are or have are of and from and are bestowed by God that we may bring to him service and honor.
To him be the glory for ever. Amen.-He is worthy of glory now and forever.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
of him: 1Ch 29:11, 1Ch 29:12, Psa 33:6, Pro 16:4, Dan 2:20-23, Dan 4:3, Dan 4:34, Mat 6:13, Act 17:25, Act 17:26, Act 17:28, 1Co 8:6, Eph 4:6-10, Col 1:15-17, Rev 21:6
to whom: Gr. to him, Rom 16:27, Psa 29:1, Psa 29:2, Psa 96:7, Psa 96:8, Psa 115:1, Isa 42:12, Luk 2:14, Luk 19:38, Gal 1:5, Eph 3:21, Phi 4:20, 1Ti 1:17, 1Ti 6:16, 2Ti 4:18, Heb 13:21, 1Pe 5:11, 2Pe 3:18, Jud 1:25, Rev 1:5, Rev 1:6, Rev 4:10, Rev 4:11, Rev 5:12-14, Rev 7:10, Rev 19:1, Rev 19:6, Rev 19:7
Reciprocal: Gen 1:1 – God 1Ch 29:14 – all things Job 12:9 – the hand Psa 104:31 – The glory Ecc 3:14 – whatsoever Eze 45:17 – the prince’s Mat 21:41 – and will let out Joh 19:11 – Thou Act 15:14 – to take 1Co 1:30 – of God 1Co 11:12 – but 2Co 1:20 – unto 2Co 5:18 – all Col 1:16 – by Heb 2:10 – for Rev 5:13 – blessing
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
GODS REVELATION TO MAN
Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever.
Rom 11:36
We are in great danger of losing much of the comfort and strength which we are intended to find in the Holy Scriptures by studying them, if we study them at all, or thinking of them in what I may call a fragmentary way. We read a passage here and there, or we hear it read to us in the services of Gods house, but we fail to take a general view of the whole revelation, which is continuous from the first chapter of Genesis to the last chapter in Revelation. And thus we fail to perceive the method and purpose, not only of the revelation itself, but of Gods dealings with man from the time of his creation to the time of his everlasting glory in the New Jerusalem.
Let us consider what is the character, what is the substance and the method of the whole Scriptures as they are contained for us in the Word of God.
I. Holy Scripture brings before us the creation of man.It tells us that man is of a twofold nature; as it is expressed in the book of Genesis, he is made of the dust of the ground. These are figurative words, and are meant to imply that man has an earthly nature. But, on the other hand, we are told that God breathed into him, and he became a living soul. He has then also a spiritual nature, and with these two he is equipped and endowed for his work in the world during the course of his earthly life. But there is something more told us; we are told that he is made in the image of God. There is something akin to God in him. And he is endowed with a capacity of knowing God and of loving Godthe highest of all the blessed endowments with which God has blessed his creature man. Then came the Fall. The Fall means disobedience to Gods will; and all sin is of the same character. Sin is the transgression of the law, John tells us. It is the disobedience to Gods will that is the inner essence of all sin, whatever shape or form it may take. Here, then, is the first, the opening chapter of this book, if we may so speak, in the revelation of Godthe creation of man, his trial, his failure, his fall, and the disorder that ensued for himself and for the world in which we live.
II. The next chapter is occupied by the education of the human race with a view to its restoration. For no sooner had man failed than God, His Father, undertook the work of redemption.
III. And now comes the third period embraced by the Holy Scriptures. Men have learned, or they might have learned, by this time that the race could never redeem itself, that there was no hope for restoration in man himself. He was helpless to achieve that longing of his own soul, and still more the longing desire of the Father for His children. And so we reach the conclusion of the Psalmist, Now, Lord, what is my hope? Man has failed, man has disobeyed, Now, Lord, what is my hope? Truly my hope is even in Thee. If there is to be a restoration at all it must come from God, and not from man. So, then, through that perfect sacrifice we find, as the close of that chapter in the history of man, God is reconciled to man, He has seen man as He desired him to be, and intended him to be; God is reconciled to man, and man is restored through Christ to the favour of God.
IV. And there is one chapter more, that chapter in which we ourselves are the actors, the history of which we ourselves are writing in our lives from day to day. Man through Christ is admitted to the family of God, and that admission to Gods family is sealed and conveyed to him in that baptism which God enjoined upon His disciples, Go into all the world and baptize. For in that baptism is the assurance that man is restored to Gods favour through Christ, and in that baptism man is really united to that Christ in Whom all his hope and all his happiness must lie. Man, then, is admitted to the family of God and reunited to God his Maker through Christ.
Now you will see why I chose my text. What is the meaning of all this that I have been saying, and of the whole story of Scripture, but this: Of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things? He is the beginning, all things are of Him; He is the way, all things are through Him; He is our home, all things are to Him. It is the very keynote of the whole Scripture revelation of God: Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.
Archbishop Maclagan.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE
God governs all things in heaven and earth. This is the faith of every simple Christian. This is the faith in which he finds refuge when dazed by the contradictions of human thought. God forbid that we should disparage human thought. We must all be thinkers. But, with all our thinking, we are unable to solve the riddle of the universe.
I. A threefold statement.The Apostle takes us back to the very beginning of things. Let us carefully consider the meanings of the three statements which he puts so very concisely:
(a) Of God. The first is a statement which all but the atheist will makethat God is the great First Cause. He is the Source and Origin of all things. All things proceed from Him, as their author and creator; all things are of Him. Some Christians are too ready to stop here. Their philosophy demands the great First Cause, and they find that First Cause in God, but they are half-disposed to imagine that Gods action in creation may have been at once final and complete, so that the universe itself has to be thought of as a piece of mechanism wound up and set in motion by its constructor, but left to go on by itself in utter independence of His Presence or control.
(b) Through God. Now St. Paul is not satisfied with any such limited view of Gods action in the universe. He is not content to say that all things are of God, but all things are through Him. God is not only the First Cause, but He is the ever-present power which worketh all in all.
(c) To God. But St. Paul insists that all things are to Godthat is, God is the end and object towards which all creation tends. The powers of the universe not only proceed from God as their Author, but they are directed to the fulfilment of His purpose, Divine also in their end. It is said of man that the end and object of his existence is the glory of God. All things are for the fulfilment of Gods purpose; all things are for Gods glory; all things are to God.
II. Practical thoughts.Some very practical thoughts follow from the consideration of the subject before us.
(a) First, the sacredness of all truth. It seems to me that the knowledge of any truth whatever must be an element of our knowledge of God. The knowledge of any verity is the knowledge of something which witnesses for God. Some people seem to be afraid of the difficulties of science, but God cannot contradict Himself.
(b) Secondly, observe the unity of the secular and the spiritual. The subject before us suggests a warning that we should not exaggerate the distinctions between the secular and the spiritual. Christ has said, One thing is needful, but He has also said, All things are clean unto you. Both are sacred. The secular things themselves are of God, and through God, and unto God. Apply this first to your own work in life, and then to your efforts to benefit those around you.
(c) Thirdly, God ministers through Nature. Our subject shows that God is ministering to us not only in psalm and sacred rite, but in all the ways and laws of Nature. Men have sometimes fallen into the mistake of disregarding the laws of Nature, whilst they looked to God to work for them some miracle in their favour. They have neglected the sanitary laws of cleanliness, whilst they have committed themselves into Gods hands as regarded some prevalent disease, praying to be delivered from it. Is this faith? Oh, no; it is sheer unbelief. It means that they think of God and Nature as two powers ruling in two independent provinces. They have no faith to see that all things are of God, and recognise Gods Holy Spirit in the inspiration of chemist and physician. They have not faith to accept the discoveries of science as a revelation given to us by God Himself.
III. The final triumph.Let us dwell upon the assurance that all things are to God. They will all end in God and to His glory. They began of God, they continue through His providence, and they are to Him, and must eventuate in His glory. The very will of the creature has been turned against the Creator. Yes, in the conflict of good and evil in our world good must triumph over evil. God cannot fail. The work of redemption in Jesus Christ cannot be set at naught. Christ victorious, Christ reigning with His saints in the Kingdom of Heaven in everlasting glory.
Prebendary Allen Whitworth.
Illustration
Gods voice in science cannot possibly be opposed to His voice in any other revelation, for science is itself one of His revelations to mankind. All truth is of God, and truth cannot contradict truth. Science may be doubtful about some of her conclusionswe ought not hastily to accept thembut there are other conclusions of science about which there is no doubt whatever. It does concern the theologian to take them into account as a revelation of God, and to give them their due weight in interpreting the other revelations of God, for no single revelation is to be interpreted by itself, but the whole testimony of God is to be received, whether it be delivered by psalmist, or prophet, or by philosopher, scientist, or poet.
Rom 12:1-2
ST. PAULS APPEAL FOR CHRISTIAN WORSHIP
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world.
Rom 12:1-2
St. Paul has been rehearsing the mercies of God in Christ and redemption. He has been placarding before their eyes in the long panorama of history the course of Gods merciful providence for Jew and for Gentile, and then he turns round on his audience, with a pointed and practical conclusion, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by these mercies of God to you, which I have been rehearsing, to make offering to God of your bodies, and not conform your conduct to the world.
I. The meaning of Christian worship.Well, that, put shortly, is St. Pauls appeal for Christian worship. That is his justification of Christian worship, and we, so many hundred years after, as we read his appeal, cannot but admit that worship, so justified, is reasonable. If our creed is true, if it is by the mercy of God that we are what we are, should not a sense of His mercies bring us before His presence with thanksgiving and prayer? And therefore, in our highest act of Christian worship, which is the Holy Communion (that great act commemorates the whole of our Lords life of self-offering summed up into its final scene), we who are redeemed by the offering of that Body, with a sense of that mercy quickened in our hearts, we take those words into our mouths, and we say, These bodies which Thou hast prepared for us, O God, lo, we also are going to do Thy will. Here we, we also, in and through Christ, present unto Thee ourselves, our souls, our bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice. That offering of the heart and will, the sursum corda, has been an integral part of the Eucharist from the earliest Christian age. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord. For no service could be more reasonable. Every Christian who knows the Creed, and is grateful, must acknowledge that it is meet and right to do so. It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty.
II. Why worship is neglected.Why are there so many Christians who do not worship? I think we may distinguish several causes of the neglect.
(a) Through ignorance. Of course the most obvious reason would be a failure to understand the Christian creed, a failure to recognise Gods mercy, through simple ignorance, which may easily happen among the thronging population of our large cities.
(b) Wrong ideas of God. Another reason may be traced in the existence of a feeling that after all God is beyond our gratitude, that He cannot care for it. Can anybody read the parable of the Prodigal Son, and not see that Christ meant to attribute to God emotions of joy at the return of His child from the far country?
(c) An idea that worship is superseded. But then, again, worship is sometimes disregarded from another motive, from a notion, not always, perhaps, clearly defined, that worship in this age has become superseded by practical philanthropy. If there is to be a controversy to-day between worship and philanthropy, it can only be a new form of the old controversy between faith and works, which the Scripture decides in favour of faith. We are made righteous by faith, not because works of righteousness are unimportantof course notbut because faith in God is the ground of all such works. Faith is the root of the tree that bears such heavenly fruit.
(d) An absence of reality. And then, once more, may not the neglect of public worship be due in some degree to some defect in the rites and ceremonies provided for the worshipper? If that is so, the fact should be faced and a remedy should be sought.
III. A picture of the worshipping Church.There is a picture of the worshipping Church in the Book of Revelation that may teach us many lessons. John saw a throne in heaven, and Him Who sat thereon, and round about the throne he saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white robes, with crowns of gold, and beyond them, in an outer circle, he saw four living creatures, symbols of the whole of creation, one like a lion, and one like a calf, and one like a flying eagle, and one with the face of a man, and they said, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, Which was, and is, and is to come. That is to say, that under the image of these four living ones the Apostle sees all creation, all created things, bowing down before the throne of God, and giving Him glory and honour and thanks. Well, now, as a matter of fact, how do they do so, how do the beasts and cattle and birds praise God and magnify Him? The answer is, They perform His will, they follow the path which He has prescribed for them; and so, because man too is a creature, for man also to perform the will of the Creator, to do right, in whatever blind, instinctive way, is to give glory to God.
Rev. Canon Beeching.
Illustration
A crowd of people were visiting a gallery of pictures upon which a philanthropist was discoursing, and presently he came to a picture of the woman in the Pharisees house who was anointing our Lords feet with precious ointment. The lecturer told the story, and then made this comment: In old days that was thought to be religion. But happily we have learned better now. We know that religion means doing your duty and loving your neighbour. But the Founder of our faith knew better than His modern interpreter wherein lay the essence of religion; and He was not undervaluing actions of brotherly love when He said that the spring of all such actions lies in devotion to Himself.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
CONSECRATION OF LIFE
It cannot be denied that St. Paul is asking a great deal in this passage.
I. Consider the force of the appeal.Three facts combine to make it almost irresistible:
(a) The character of the writer.
(b) The ground upon which he rests his appeal. I beseech you, by the mercies of God. We are drawn to contemplate the threefold work, and we hear the threefold voice, of the Blessed Trinity.
(c) The force of the argument is ratified by the teaching of the Church. The Epistle is appointed for the First Sunday after Epiphany. We have gathered round the cradle of the new-born King, and contemplated the mystery of the Incarnation; the glorious object revealed to our view is no less than God manifest in the flesh. As, then, we think of how He emptied Himself of His glory, and voluntarily elected to undergo a life of shame and humiliation, and to die ultimately a death of agony, we begin to understand indeed what the Apostle means.
II. But for what is God asking through His Apostle?He asks us to present our bodies. We pause a moment, and ask, Why our bodies? Surely it is with our hearts that God has primarily to do. The explanation is simply this, that these Roman converts to whom the Apostle addressed himself had presented their hearts already. Gods order is invariablethe heart first, the body afterwards. You cannot reverse this. Many try to do so, and they make confusion worse confounded.
III. The nature of the sacrifice.I beseech youpresent your bodies. We must understand this clearlyGod will have us accept His gift, before we present our gift to Him. First accept the gift of God, which is everlasting life, in your own souls; then in your turn give Him yours. He gives you the life which is to pervade your humanity; it is your blessed privilege in return to present that humanity as a sacrifice to Him. It is here, alas, where many professing Christians go wrong. They have given their hearts, they say, to God, they have accepted the gift of eternal life; and they have only to sit down and congratulate themselves on the spiritual blessing conveyed to them. But
IV. We are to present our bodies a living sacrifice.The right estimate of Gods gift will not permit us simply to sit down, satisfied with what He has given. The thought of the mercies of God becomes a power within our nature, and we turn towards Him, Who gave Himself for us, with the cry, Lord and Master, what can we do for Thee? And the Voice Divine seems to say, I want that body of yours. That body of yours is a necessity for your service on earth, so much so that when I Myself came into the world to work out the Fathers will and redeem mankind, it was necessary that I Myself should take a body (Psa 40:6; Heb 10:5-7). Even I required a body that I might render that completeness of service which I desired to My Father. You have such a body now. I want that body, that through it the influences of the unseen Brother may be felt amongst brethren. It is the only thing thou hast to give Me; I could do without thee, but I will not, and the one thing I ask thee is to present thy body to Me. Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee!
Rev. Canon Aitken.
Illustration
He will have the life or nothing. All the powers of mind, memory, will, which work through the bodily organisation; all the power of muscle, nerve, and brain. As Chrysostom strikingly says: Let not the eye see evil, and it is become a sacrifice; let not the tongue speak what is shameful, and it is become profitable; let not the hand do a lawless deed, it is become a whole burnt-offering.
(THIRD OUTLINE)
DEDICATION OF LIFE
Fundamentally our Lords sacrifice was a sacrifice of the will, but He allowed that will to execute its purpose through the body, and so our Lord does penance with His human body for all those sins that you and I sinned with our body as the instrument of the will within us. If we are to partake in full and have our share in the twofold work of redemption, we must be in touch with Him. There are many ways in which we can do penance.
I. There must be no shirking of the work of repentance.It all brings us into closer touch with Him.
II. We must keep in subjection this body, chasten its desires, and check its longings for unholy gratification.
But is that the only way to glorify God with our bodies?
III. There must be a dedicating of all our powersof soul, and spirit, and of bodyin order that, recognising the claim which God has upon us, we may yield ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, to His service.
Rev. E. P. Williams.
Illustration
The Fakirs in India think to do God an extraordinary service by depriving their bodies of proper care and nourishment, or covering themselves with mud, or crippling their limbs in an unnatural way. The Lord our God demands our body, but He is Holy, and such our sacrifice must be. It must be unstained by wilful guilt. This living, holy sacrifice is acceptable to God. Even heathen writers have had glimpses of the truth that the only sacrifice that can be well pleasing to God is the sacrifice of the heart, of the whole man, and that animal sacrifices were only acceptable as expressive of this higher spiritual offering.
(FOURTH OUTLINE)
A LIVING SACRIFICE
I. The sacrifice God requires.That ye present your bodies. Our bodies, that is, the life of our bodies; for if we give our bodies as an offering, we give all that belongs to the body. The sacrifice God requires is that of the life devoted to Him.
(a) The life may be given to business, but this must be given to Him, and so the employment of our hands and minds made holy.
(b) The life may be given to science, but it must not be a Christless science.
(c) The life may be given to theology, but it must not be a theology with God left out.
II. The sacrifice God accepts.
(a) A living sacrifice. Our bodies may be brought as dead offerings. The eyes may be cast down in an assumed humility; the hands may be folded in prayer, but the heart far from God; the lips may move and the heart be silent. Thus all our works may be dead works. The sacrifice we are to present must be instinct with the soul of true piety and love to God.
(b) A holy sacrifice. That which we bring to God we separate from all common and profane uses. In bringing our bodies as a sacrifice we engage ourselves to Gods service, to obedience to His will and the furtherance of His honour.
(c) A spiritual sacrifice. The words, which is your reasonable service, have been often taken to mean that whilst the offering of animals was with natural unwillingness on the part of the beasts that were forcibly brought, the Christians offering is that of a voluntary, reasoning agent. The expression has reference to the ceremonial character of the Jewish and heathen cultus. From the Christian is demanded an inner spiritual service in the place of the external character, the merely mechanical nature of the Jewish and heathen sacrifices.
Illustration
St. Paul besought these Romans to do what David Livingstone did, though of course he had done it before. It was March 19, 1872, his last birthday but one (he died May 1, 1873), that he wrote these words in his diary: My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee. Amen, so let it be. And his name is written below.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
:36
Rom 11:36. The thought of this verse is that the Lord is infinite in wisdom and every other greatness, and man is entirely dependent upon Him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 11:36. For. What was negatively expressed in Rom 11:35, is now positively stated in language which is as simple as it is sublime.
Of him, as the original Source, Author, Creator; and through him, as our Preserver and Governor and Bountiful Benefactor, as superior to nature which He created, controlling and directing it, and that for His own ends, since the Apostle adds: and unto him are all things. All things (not simply all persons) will carry out His will, will contribute to His glory. Human thought can rise no higher than this. Attempts have been made to refer the three phrases respectively to the three Persons of the Trinity, but the second and third prepositions do not seem distinctively applicable to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor does the train of thought demand such an explanation.
To him be the glory forever (Gr., unto the ages). Amen. The glory befitting such a God is here ascribed to Him; unto the ages is, as usual, equivalent to forever; and the doxology properly closes with the solemn Amen; comp. chaps. Rom 1:25; Rom 9:5.
This doxology is the sublimest apostrophe existing even in the pages of Inspiration itself (Alford). Yet how logical its arrangement, how apt its argument. It forms a conclusion to the section, and not less appropriately to the whole discussion in chaps. 9-11, in fact, to the whole doctrinal part of the Epistle. The greatest treatise on Gods dealings with men ends not only with praise to Him, but with a confession of His sovereignty. This which so exalts God does indeed humble us. But it is through this humility that we too are exalted. The gospel of grace would be no real gospel were it not the message of the sovereign God whom the Apostle thus adores. He only has practically solved the mystery of Gods sovereignty and our free will who can join in this doxology. It is our privilege, in regard to the great mysteries of humanity as well as in the personal perplexities which meet us, it is our privilege to trust and praise God, when we can no longer trace His purposes. As Godet well remarks, in chap. 11 are traced the grand outlines of the philosophy of History, but Pauls philosophy of history ends in this conception of God, which is as essential for our every day needs as for the solution of the problem of mans origin, history, and destiny. Rightly then the Apostolic therefore the practical inference, is at once added. Unless Pauls theism is acknowledged, and his praise repeated, his ethics are powerless.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
That is, all things are of God, as the author and efficient cause; all things are through him as the providential director, and preserving cause; and all things tend to him, as the ultimate end and final cause: therefore to him all praise, honour, and glory, ought for ever to be ascribed.”
Learn hence, That God is the first cause, and last end.
He is the first cause; that is, he is the cause of all things besides himself, the fountain and original of all created beings; nothing was before him, but all things were created by him, and dependent upon him.
And as he is the first cause, so he is the last end, that is, all things tend to him as their ultimate end; their design and aim was the illustration of God’s glory, and the manifestation of his divine perfections.
And if God be the first cause, let us with humility and thankfulness acknowledge him, admire and adore him, love and serve him, who is the author of our being, and the cause of all other beings.
And if he be the last end, let us refer all our actions to his glory; in all our natural actions, our civil actions, let the glory of God be our supreme aim, and ultimate end.
For if we do not now live unto him, we can never expect hereafter to live with him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 36. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things: To whom be glory for ever! Amen.
God’s absolute independence, man’s total dependence in everything which might be a matter of glory to him: such is the thought of this verse, the termination of this vast survey of the plan of God. The first prep. , of, refers to God as Creator; it is of Him that man holds everything: life, breath, and all things, Act 17:25. The second, , through, refers to the government of mankind. Everything, even the free determinations of the human will, are executed only through Him, and are turned immediately to the accomplishment of His designs. The third, , to, refers to the final goal. The word to Him does not refer to God’s personal satisfaction, an idea which might undoubtedly be supported; for, as Beck says, the egoism of God is the life of the world. But it is more natural to apply the term to Him to the accomplishment of His will, in which His own glory and the happiness of His sanctified creatures blend together as one and the same thing. It has been sometimes attempted to apply these three prepositional clauses to the three persons of the divine Trinity; modern exegesis (Mey., Gess, Hofm.) has in general departed from this parallel; and rightly. When Paul speaks of God, absolutely considered, it is always the God and Father he intends, without, of course, excluding His revelation through Christ and His communication by the Holy Spirit. But this distinction is not raised here, and had no place in the context. What the apostle was concerned to say in closing, was that all things proceeding from the creative will of God, advancing through His wisdom and terminating in the manifestation of His holiness, must one day celebrate His glory, and His glory only.
The application of the word all things might be restricted to the two portions of mankind spoken of (as in Rom 11:32). But Paul rises here to the general principle of which Rom 11:32 was only a particular application, and hence also he substitutes the neuter all things for the masculine all. What is meant, therefore, is the totality of created things, visible and invisible.
The glory of God, the reflection of His perfections in all that exists, that glory, now veiled, in so many respects in the universe, must shine forth magnificently and perfectly forever and ever. For, as Hodge says, the highest end for which all things can exist and be ordered, is to display the character of God. This goal of history is, as it were, anticipated by the wish and prayer of the apostle: To Him be glory!
The first part of the doctrinal treatise had terminated in the parallel between the two heads of mankind, a passage in which there was already heard a more exalted note. The second part closed, at the end of chap. 8, with a sort of lyrical passage, in which the apostle celebrated the blessing of sanctification crowning the grace of justification, and thus assuring the state of glory. The third, that which we are concluding here, terminates in a passage of the same kind, a hymn of adoration in honor of the divine plan realized in spite of, and even by means of, human unfaithfulness. After thus finishing the exposition of salvation in its foundation (justification), in its internal development (sanctification), and in its historical course among mankind (the successive calling of the different nations, and their final union in the kingdom of God), the apostle puts, as it were, a full period, the Amen which closes this part of the epistle.
Never was survey more vast taken of the divine plan of the world’s history. First, the epoch of primitive unity, in which the human family forms still only one unbroken whole; then the antagonism between the two religious portions of the race, created by the special call of Abraham: the Jews continuing in the father’s house, but with a legal and servile spirit, the Gentiles walking in their own ways. At the close of this period, the manifestation of Christ determining the return of the latter to the domestic hearth, but at the same time the departure of the former. Finally, the Jews, yielding to the divine solicitations and to the spectacle of salvation enjoyed by the Gentiles as children of grace; and so the final universalism in which all previous discords are resolved, restoring in an infinitely higher form the original unity, and setting before the view of the universe the family of God fully constituted.
The contrast between the Jews and Gentiles appears therefore as the essential moving spring of history. It is the actions and reactions arising from this primary fact which form its key. This is what no philosophy of history has dreamed of, and what makes these chaps. 9-11 the highest theodicy.
If criticism has thought it could deduce from this passage the hypothesis of a Judeo-Christian majority in the church of Rome, if it has sought to explain it, as well as the whole of our epistle, by the desire felt by Paul to reconcile this church to his missionary activity among the Gentiles, it is easy to see from the passage, rightly understood, how remote such criticism is from the real thought which inspired this treatise. The conclusion from an altogether general application, Rom 11:30-32, in which he addresses the whole church as former Gentiles whom he expressly distinguishes from Jews, can leave no doubt as to the origin of the Christians of Rome. Supposing even that in Rom 11:13 he had divided his readers into two classes, which we have found to be a mistake, from Rom 11:25 he would in any case be again addressing all his readers. And as to the intention of the whole passage, it is evidently to show that those who should have been first, though now put last, are not, however, excluded, as the Gentiles might proudly imagine, and that if the , firstly, ascribed to the Jews by God’s original plan (Rom 1:16) has not been historically realized (through their own fault), the divine programme in regard to mankind will nevertheless, though in another way, have its complete execution. Rom 11:32 is the counterpart of Rom 1:16. It is therefore to impair the meaning of this passage to see in it an apology for Paul’s mission. The thought is more elevated: it is the defence of the plan of God Himself addressed to the whole church.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. [Summary statement of the all-comprehensive riches of God. 1. God, in the beginning or past, is the author, origin and creative source of all existence. He is the efficient original cause from whence all came (hence his perfect knowledge). 2. God, in the middle or present, is the sustaining, supporting means of all existence. He is the continuous cause by which all things are upheld. By ruling and overruling all forces, he is the preserving governor and the providential director of creation in its course toward to-morrow (hence his unerring wisdom). 3. God, in the end or future, is the ultimate purpose or end of all existence. He is the final cause for which creation was and is and will be; for all things move to consummate his purposes, fulfill his pleasure and satisfy his love. They shall glorify him and be glorified by him (hence his riches: he is all in all– 1Co 15:28] To him be the glory for ever. Amen. [Thus with the customary benediction (Gal 1:5; 2Ti 4:18; Heb 13:1; 1Pe 5:11) and the formal “Amen,” the apostle closes the doctrinal division of his Epistle.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
11:36 For of him, and through him, and to {k} him, [are] all things: to whom [be] glory for ever. Amen.
(k) That is, for God, to whose glory all things are ascribed, not only things that were made, but especially his new works which he works in his elect.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
God is the source from which all things come, the means by which all things happen, and the goal toward which all things are moving. He is the originator, sustainer, and finisher of everything ultimately (cf. Col 1:16-17). In view of all these things (Rom 11:33-36), He deserves all glory forever.
The primary focus of this doxology, which harmonizes with the subject of chapters 9-11, is God’s great plan of salvation through history. However "all things" (Rom 11:36) includes the lives of individuals as well.
Paul had now concluded his theological exposition of how unrighteous human beings can obtain the righteousness of God. Only the explanation of the implications of having this righteousness remained for him to clarify. This practical guidance is especially important since the Christian is no longer under the regulations of the Mosaic Law (Rom 7:6; Rom 10:4). What follows is New Covenant teaching.