As it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumblingstone and rock of offense: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
33. Behold, &c.] The quotation is a combination of Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16, and is closely after the Heb., but widely differs from the LXX. of Rom 8:14. Both passages (q. v.) refer to the great Promise, which was proposed to Israel of old as a better ground of trust than earthly policy or religious formalism, but was rejected by the worldly majority. Here, as so often, St Paul is led to see in a promise which had a present meaning for Isaiah’s time, a revelation of truth for the whole history of Israel in relation to Him who is the innermost theme of all Scripture prophecy. In such cases the question “what did the Prophet intend?” is only subordinate to “what did his Inspirer intend?” In the Speaker’s Commentary, on Isaiah 28, the paraphrase of the eminent Rabbi Rashi is quoted: “Behold I have established a King, the Messiah, who shall be in Zion a stone of proof.”
a stumblingstone and rock of offence ] i.e. Christ, as the Object of humble and absolute confidence and hope. Cp. Psa 118:22; Mat 21:42; 1Co 1:23; Gal 5:11; 1Pe 2:6-8. “ Offence: ” in its antique sense of an obstacle at which the foot trips.
shall not be ashamed ] So too LXX. of Isa 28:16. The Heb. has “shall not make haste.” The idea is the same in both; to “make haste” was to be in the hurry of fear, as when a refuge breaks down before a foe; and so to be “ashamed of,” or bitterly disappointed in, the refuge.
In this prophetic passage St Paul is led to find (1) a prediction of Israel’s stumbling at the truth of Christ our Justification, and thus to re-assure minds disquieted by the sight of Israel’s unbelief; (2) a proclamation of Faith (reposed on Christ) as the means of salvation. See below, Rom 10:11.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
As it is written – see Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16. The quotation here is made up of both these passages, and contains the substance of both; compare also Psa 118:22; 1Pe 2:6.
Behold I lay in Sion – Mount Sion was the hill or eminence in Jerusalem, over-against Mount Moriah, on which the temple was built. On this was the palace of David, and this was the residence of the court; 1Ch 11:5-8. Hence, the whole city was often called by that name; Psa 48:12; Psa 69:35; Psa 87:2. Hence, also it came to signify the capital, the glory of the people of God, the place of solemnities; and hence, also the church itself; Psa 2:6; Psa 51:18; Psa 102:13; Psa 137:3; Isa 1:27; Isa 52:1; Isa 59:20, etc. In this place it means the church. God will place or establish in the midst of that church.
A stumblingstone and rock of offence – Something over which people shall fall; see the note at Mat 5:29. This is by Paul referred to the Messiah. He is called rock of stumbling, not because it was the design of sending him that people should fall, but because such would be the result. The application of the term rock to the Messiah is derived from the custom of building, as he is the cornerstone or the immovable foundation on which the church is to be built. It is not on human merits, but by the righteousness of the Saviour, that the church is to be reared; see 1Pe 2:4, I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone; Psa 118:22, The stone which the builders rejected, is become the head stone of the corner; Eph 2:20, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. This rock, designed as a corner stone to the church, became, by the wickedness of the Jews, the block over which they fall into ruin; 1Pe 2:8.
Shall not be ashamed – This is taken substantially from the Septuagint translation of Isa 28:16, though with some variation. The Hebrew is, shall not make haste, as it is in our English version. This is the literal meaning of the Hebrew word; but it means also to be afraid; as one who makes haste often is; to be agitated with fear or fright; and hence, it has a signification nearly similar to that of shame. It expresses the substance of the same thing, namely, failure of obtaining expected success and happiness. The meaning here is, that the man who believes shall not be agitated, or thrown into commotion, by fear of want or success: shall not be disappointed in his hopes; and, of course, he shall never be ashamed that he became a Christian. They who do not believe in Christ shall be agitated, fall, and sink into eternal shame and contempt. Dan 12:2. They who do believe shall be confident; shall not be deceived, but shall obtain the object of their desires. It is clear that Paul regarded the passage in Isaiah as referring to the Messiah. The same also is the case with the other sacred writers who have quoted it; 1Pe 2:5-8; see also Mat 21:42; Luk 20:17-18; Luk 2:34. The ancient Targum of Jonathan translates the passage, Isa 28:16, Lo, I will place in Zion a king, a king strong, mighty and terrible; referring doubtless to the Messiah. Other Jewish writings also show that this interpretation was formerly given by the Jews to the passage in Isaiah.
In view of this argument of the apostle, we may remark,
(1) That God is a sovereign, and has a right to dispose of people as he pleases.
(2) The doctrine of election was manifest in the case of the Jews as an established principle of the divine government, and is therefore true.
(3) It argues great lack of proper feeling to be opposed to this doctrine. It is saving, in other words, that we have not confidence in God; or that we do not believe that he is qualified to direct the affairs of his own universe as well as we.
(4) The doctrine of election is a doctrine which is not arbitrary; but which will yet be seen to be wise, just, and good. It is the source of all the blessings that any mortals enjoy; and in the case before us, it can be seen to be benevolent as well as just. It is better that God should cast off a part of the small nation of the Jews, and extend these blessings to the Gentiles, than that they should always have been confined to Jews. The world is better for it, and more good has come out of it.
(5) The fact that the gospel has been extended to all nations, is proof that it is from heaven. To a Jew there was no motive to attempt to break down all the existing institutions of his nation, and make the blessings of religion common to all nations, unless he knew that the gospel system was true. Yet the apostles were Jews; educated with all the prejudices of the Jewish people.
(6) The interests of Christians are safe. They shall not be ashamed or disappointed. God will keep them, and bring them to his kingdom.
(7) People still are offended at the cross of Christ. They contemn and despise him. He is to them as a root out of dry ground, and they reject him, and fall into ruin. This is the cause why sinners perish; and this only. Thus, as the ancient Jews brought ruin on themselves and their country, so do sinners bring condemnation and woe on their souls. And as the ancient despisers and crucifiers of the Lord Jesus perished, so will all those who work iniquity and despise him now.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 33. As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion] Christ, the Messiah, is become a stone of stumbling to them: and thus what is written in the prophecy of Isaiah is verified in their case, Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16: Behold, I lay in Sion, i.e. I shall bring in my Messiah; but he shall be a widely different person from him whom the Jews expect; for, whereas they expect the Messiah to be a mighty secular prince, and to set up a secular kingdom, he shall appear a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs; and redeem mankind, not by his sword or secular power, but by his humiliation, passion, and death. Therefore they will be offended at him and reject him, and think it would be reproachful to trust in such a person for salvation.
And whosoever believeth on him] But so far shall any be from confusion or disappointment who believes in Christ; that on the contrary, every genuine believer shall find salvation-the remission of sins here, and eternal glory hereafter. See the notes on Ro 1:16; Ro 1:17, and Dr. Taylor’s paraphrase and notes.
1. ON the subject of vicarious punishment, or rather the case of one becoming an anathema or sacrifice for the public good, in illustration of Ro 9:3, I shall make no apology for the following extracts, taken from an author whose learning is vast, and whose piety is unblemished.
“When mankind lost sight of a beneficent Creator, the God of purity, and consecrated altars to the sun, the moon, the stars; to demons; and to hero gods, under the names of Moloch, Ashtaroth and Baalim; these objects of their worship led them to the most horrid acts of cruelty, and to every species of obscenity; even their sons and their daughters they burnt in the fire to their gods, more especially in seasons of distress. Such was the conduct of the king of Moab; for, when he was besieged in his capital, and expected he should fall into the hands of his enemies, he took his eldest son, who should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall.
With these facts thus related from the Scriptures, all accounts, ancient and modern, exactly correspond. Homer, who it must be recollected wrote more than nine hundred years before the Christian era, although he describes chiefly the common sacrifices of quadrupeds, yet gives one account of human victims. But in succeeding generations, when it was conceived that one great and most malignant spirit was the proper object of their fear, or that subordinate provincial gods, equally malignant, nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda, disposed of all things in our world, men bound their own species to the altar, and in circumstances of national distress presented such as they valued most, either their children or themselves. Herodotus informs us that, when the army of Xerxes came to the Strymon, the magi offered a sacrifice of white horses to that river. On his arrival at the Scamander, the king ascended the citadel of Priam; and having surveyed it, he ordered a thousand oxen to be sacrificed to the Trojan Minerva. But on other occasions he chose human victims; for we are informed that, when, having passed the Strymon, he reached the nine ways, he buried alive nine young men and as many virgins, natives of the country. In this he followed the example of his wife, for she commanded fourteen Persian children, of illustrious birth, to be offered in that manner to the deity who reigns beneath the earth. Thus, in the infancy of Rome we see Curtius, for the salvation of his country, devoting himself to the infernal gods, when, as it appears, an earthquake occasioned a deep and extensive chasm in the forum, and the augurs had declared that the portentous opening would never close until what contributed most to the strength and power of the Romans should be cast into it; but that by such a sacrifice they would obtain immortality for their republic. When all men were at a loss how to understand this oracle, M. Curtius, armed as for battle, presented himself in the forum, and explained it thus: ‘What is more valuable to Rome than her courage and her arms?’ So saying, he urged forward his impetuous steed, and buried himself in the abyss. His grateful countrymen admired his fortitude, and attributed the increasing splendour of their state to the sacrifice he made. Animated by this example, Decius, in the war between Rome and Latium, having solemnly offered himself as an expiatory sacrifice, rushed single into the thickest ranks of the astonished Latins, that by his death he might appease the anger of the gods, transfer their indignation to the enemy, and secure the victory to Rome. Conspectus ab utroque acie aliquanto augustior humano visu, sicut Caelo missus, piaculum omnis deorum irae, qui pestem ab suis aversam in hostes ferret.
Here we see distinctly marked the notion of vicarious suffering, and the opinion that the punishment of guilt may be transferred from the guilty to the innocent. The gods call for sacrifice-the victim bleeds-atonement is made-and the wrath of the infernal powers falls in its full force upon the enemy. Thus, while Themistocles at Salamine was offering sacrifice, three captives, the sons of Sandance, and nephews to Xerxes, all distinguished for their beauty, elegantly dressed and decked, as became their birth, with ornaments of gold, being brought on board his galley, the augur, Euphrantides, observing at the very instant a bright flame ascending from the altar, whilst one was sneezing on the right, which he regarded as a propitious omen, he seized the hand of Themistocles, and commanded that they should all be sacrificed to Bacchus, ( – cruel and relentless Bacchus! Homer has the same expression,) predicting, on this occasion, safety and conquests to the Greeks. Immediately the multitude with united voices called on the god, and led the captive princes to the altar, and compelled Themistocles to sacrifice them.
So when AEneas was to perform the last kind office for his friend Pallas, he sacrificed (besides numerous oxen, sheep, and swine) eight captives to the infernal gods. In this he followed the example of Achilles, who had caused twelve Trojans of high birth to bleed by the sacerdotal knife, over the ashes of his friend Patroclus.
A hundred feet in length, a hundred wide,
The glowing structure spreads on every side,
High on the top the manly course they lay,
And well-fed sheep and sable oxen slay;
Achilles covered with their fat the dead,
And the piled victims round the body spread;
Then jars of honey and of fragrant oil
Suspends around, low bending o’er the pile.
Four sprightly coursers with a deadly groan
Pour forth their lives, and on the pyre are thrown
Of nine large dogs, domestic at his board,
Fell two, selected to attend their lord:
The last of all, and horrible to tell,
Sad sacrifice! twelve Trojan captives fell;
On these the rage of fire victorious preys,
Involves and joins them in one common blaze.
Smeared with the bloody rites, he stands on high,
And calls the spirit with a cheerful cry,
All hail, Patroclus! let thy vengeful ghost
Hear, and exult on Pluto’s dreary coast.
POPE’S Homer, IL. xxiii. ver. 203
How much was it to be lamented, that even civilized natures should forget the intention for which sacrifices were originally instituted! The bad effects, however, would not have been either so extensive or so great, had they not wholly lost the knowledge of Jehovah; and taken, as the object of their fear, that evil and apostate spirit whose name, with the utmost propriety is called Apollyon, or the destroyer, and whose worship has been universally diffused at different periods among all the nations of the earth.
The practice of shedding human blood before the altars of their gods was not peculiar to the Trojans and the Greeks; the Romans followed their example. In the first ages of their republic they sacrificed children to the goddess Mania; in later periods, numerous gladiators bled at the tombs of the patricians, to appease the manes of the deceased. And it is particularly noticed of Augustus, that, after the taking of Perusia, he sacrificed on the ides of March, three hundred senators and knights to the divinity of Julius Caesar.
The Carthaginians, as Diodorus Siculus informs us, bound themselves by a solemn vow to Chronus that they would sacrifice to him children selected from the offspring of their nobles; but in process of time they substituted for these the children of their slaves, which practice they continued, till, being defeated by Agathocles, tyrant of Sicily, and attributing their disgrace to the anger of the god, they offered two hundred children, taken from the most distinguished families in Carthage; besides which, three hundred citizens presented themselves, that by their voluntary death they might render the deity propitious to their country. The mode of sacrificing these children was horrid in the extreme, for they were cast into the arms of a brazen statue, and from thence dropped into a furnace, as was practised among the first inhabitants of Latium. It was probably in this manner the Ammonites offered up their children to Moloch. The Pelasgi at one time sacrificed a tenth part of all their children, in obedience to an oracle.
The Egyptians, in Heliopolis, sacrificed three men every day to Juno. The Spartans and Arcadians scourged to death young women; the latter to appease the wrath of Bacchus, the former to gratify Diana. The Sabian idolaters in Persia offered human victims to Mithras, the Cretans to Jupiter, the Lacedemonians and Lusitanians to Mars, the Lesbians to Bacchus, the Phocians to Diana, the Thessalians to Chiron.
The Gauls, equally cruel in their worship, sacrificed men, originally to Eso and Teutate, but latterly to Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva. Caesar informs us that, whenever they thought themselves in danger, whether from sickness, or after any considerable defeat in war, being persuaded that unless life be given for life the anger of the gods can never be appeased, they constructed wicker images of enormous hulk, which they filled with men, who were first suffocated with smoke, and then consumed by fire. For this purpose they preferred criminals; but when a sufficient number of these could not be found, they supplied the deficiency from the community at large.
The Germans are said to have differed from the Gauls in having no druids, and in being little addicted to the service of the altar. Their only gods were the sun, Vulcan, and the moon; yet, among the objects of their worship was Tuisco their progenitor and Woden the hero of the north. It is true that neither Caesar nor Tacitus say any thing of their shedding blood in sacrifice; yet the probability is, that, like the Saxons and other northern nations, they not only offered blood, but took their choicest victims from the human race.
In Sweden the altars of Woden smoked incessantly with blood: this flowed most abundantly at the solemn festivals celebrated every ninth year at Upsal. Then the king, attended by the senate and by all the great officers about his court, entered the temple, which glittered on all sides with gold, and conducted to the altar nine slaves, or in time of war nine captives. These met the caresses of the multitude, as being about to avert from them the displeasure of the gods, and then submitted to their fate: but in times of distress more noble victims bled; and it stands upon record that when Aune their king was ill, he offered up to Woden his nine sons, to obtain the prolongation of his life.
The Danes had precisely the same abominable customs. Every ninth year, in the month of January, they sacrificed ninety-nine men, with as many horses, dogs, and cocks; and Hacon, king of Norway, offered his own son to obtain from Woden the victory over Harold, with whom he was at war.
In Russia the Slavi worshipped a multitude of gods, and erected to them innumerable altars. Of these deities Peroun, that is, the thunderer, was the supreme, and before his image many of their prisoners bled. Their god of physic, who also presided over the sacred fires, shared with him; and the great rivers, considered as gods, had their portion of human victims, whom they covered with their inexorable waves. But Suetovid, the god of war, was the god in whom they most delighted; to him they presented annually, as a burnt offering, three hundred prisoners, each on his horse; and when the whole was consumed by fire, the priests and people sat down to eat and drink till they were drunk. It is worthy of remark, that the residence of Suetovid was supposed to be in the sun.
To this luminary the Peruvians, before they were restrained by their Incas, sacrificed their children.
Among the sacred books of the Hindoos, the Ramayuna demands particular attention, because of its antiquity, the extent of country through which it is revered, and the view which it exhibits of the religion, doctrine, mythology, customs, and manners of their remote progenitors.
In this we have a golden age of short duration, succeeded by a state of universal wickedness and violence, which continued till the deity, incarnate, slew the oppressors of the human race, and thus restored the reign of piety and virtue.
This poem contains a description of the Ushwamedha, or most solemn sacrifice of the white horse, instituted by Swuymbhoo, that is, by the self-existent. At the celebration of this festival, the monarch, as the representative of the whole nation, acknowledged his transgressions; and when the offerings were consumed by the sacrificial fire, he was considered as perfectly absolved from his offences. Then follows a particular account of a human sacrifice, in which the victim, distinguished for filial piety, for resignation to his father’s will, and for purity of heart, was bound by the king himself and delivered to the priest; but at the very instant when his blood was to have been shed, this illustrious youth was by miracle delivered; and the monarch, as the reward of his intended sacrifice, received virtue, prosperity, and fame.
It is well known that the Brahmins have in all ages had their human victims, and that even in our days thousands have voluntarily perished under the wheels of their god Jaghernaut.”-Townsend’s character of Moses, p. 76.
Though in the preceding notes I have endeavoured to make every point as clear and plain as possible; yet it may be necessary, in order to see the scope of the apostle’s design more distinctly, to take a general survey of the whole. No man has written with more judgment on this epistle than Dr. Taylor, and from his notes I borrow the principal part of the following observations.
The principal thing that requires to be settled in this chapter is, what kind of election and reprobation the apostle is arguing about: whether election, by the absolute decree and purpose of God, to eternal life; and reprobation, by a like absolute decree, to eternal misery; or only election to the present privileges and external advantages of the kingdom of God in this world; and reprobation, or rejection, as it signifies the not being favoured with those privileges and advantages. I think it demonstrably clear that it is the latter election and rejection the apostle is discoursing on, and not the former; as the following considerations appear to me to demonstrate.
I. The subject of the apostle’s argument is manifestly such privileges as are enumerated, Ro 9:4; Ro 9:5: Who are Israelites, to whom pertains the adoption, c. From these privileges he supposes the Jews had fallen, or would fall or, that for a long time they would be deprived of the benefit of them. For it is with regard to the loss of those privileges that he was so much concerned for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh, Ro 9:2; Ro 9:3. And it is with reference to their being stripped of these privileges that he vindicates the word and righteousness of God, Ro 9:24. Not as though the word of God had taken no effect, or failed, c. proving that God, according to his purpose of election, was free to confer them upon any branch of Abraham’s family: consequently, those privileges were the singular blessings which by the purpose of God according to election, not of works, but of him that calleth, were conferred upon Jacob’s posterity. But those privileges were only such as the whole body of the Israelites enjoyed in this world, while they were the Church and people of God, and such privileges as they might afterwards lose, or of which they might be deprived; therefore the election of Jacob’s posterity to those privileges was not an absolute election to eternal life.
II. Agreeably to the purpose of God according to election, it was said unto Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger, meaning the posterity of the elder and the younger; Ge 25:23: The Lord said unto her, two NATIONS are in thy womb, and two manner of PEOPLE shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one PEOPLE shall be stronger than the other PEOPLE; and the elder shall serve the younger. These are the words which signify the purpose of God according to election: therefore the election refers to Jacob’s posterity, or the whole nation of Israel. But all the nation of Israel were not absolutely elected to eternal life: therefore the purpose of God according to election referred to temporal and not to eternal blessings, and was a privilege of which they might be deprived.
III. Agreeably to the purpose of God according to election, it was said to Rebecca, The elder shall serve the younger; but to serve, in Scripture, never meant to be eternally damned in the world to come: consequently the opposite blessing, bestowed upon the posterity of the younger, could not be eternal salvation, but certain privileges in this life; therefore the purpose according to election refers to those privileges, and the servitude does not imply everlasting perdition.
IV. The election the apostle speaks of is not of works, Ro 9:11, but of the mere will of God, who calls and invites, and refers to no qualifications in the persons thus elected and called. But in no part of the sacred writings is final salvation said to be given to any who are not qualified by holiness to receive and enjoy it; therefore election to eternal glory cannot be what the apostle speaks of in this epistle.
V. The election of which the apostle speaks took place, first in Abraham and his seed, before his seed was born; and then (secluding Ishmael and all his posterity) in Isaac and his seed before they were born. And then, secluding Esau and all his posterity, in Jacob and his seed before they were born. But the Scripture no where represents eternal life as bestowed upon any family or race of men in this manner; therefore this election mentioned by the apostle cannot be an election unto eternal life.
VI. Vessels of mercy, Ro 9:23, are manifestly opposed to vessels of wrath, Ro 9:22. The vessels of mercy are the whole body of the Jews and Gentiles, who were called or invited into the kingdom of God under the Gospel, Ro 9:24; consequently, the vessels of wrath are the whole body of the unbelieving Jews. So in Ro 9:30; Ro 9:31, the whole body of believing Gentiles, who, according to God’s purpose of election, had attained justification, are opposed to the whole body of the Israelites, who came short of it. But men shall not be received into eternal life or subjected to eternal damnation at the last day in collective bodies, but according as particular persons in those bodies have acted well or ill; therefore, this election is not of these particular bodies unto eternal life, c.
VII. Whoever carefully peruses the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, will find that those who have not believed, Ro 11:31, are the present rejected Jews, or that Israel to whom blindness hath happened in part, Ro 11:25 the same who fell, and on whom God hath shown severity, Ro 11:22; the same with the natural branches whom God spared not, Ro 11:21; who were broken off from the olive tree, Ro 11:20; Ro 11:19; Ro 11:17; who were cast away, Ro 11:15; who were diminished and fallen, Ro 11:12; who had stumbled, Ro 11:11; who were a disobedient and, gainsaying people, Ro 10:21; who, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, went about to establish their own, Ro 10:3; because they sought righteousness, not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, Ro 9:32, and therefore had not attained to the law of righteousness, Ro 9:31; the same people spoken of in all these places, are the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, Ro 9:22, and the same for whom Paul had great heaviness and continual sorrow of heart, Ro 9:2; Ro 9:3; -in short, they are the unbelieving nation, or people of Israel; and it is with regard to the reprobation or rejection of this people that he is arguing and vindicating the truth, justice, and wisdom of God in this ninth chapter.
Now, if we turn back and review those three chapters, we shall find that the apostle, Ro 11:1, heartily desired and prayed that those same reprobated and rejected people of Israel might be saved; he affirms that they had not stumbled so as to fall finally and irrecoverably, Ro 11:11; that they should have again a fulness, Ro 11:12; that they should be received again into the Church, Ro 11:16; that a holiness still belonged to them, Ro 11:16; that if they did not still abide in unbelief, they should be graffed into their own olive tree again, Ro 11:23; Ro 11:24; that blindness had happened unto them only for a time, till the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, Ro 11:25; and then he proves from Scripture, that all Israel-all those nations at present under blindness, shall be saved, Ro 11:26; Ro 11:27; that, as touching the (original) election, they were still beloved for the fathers’, the patriarchs’, sake, Ro 11:28; that, in their case, the gifts and calling of God were without repentance, Ro 11:29; that through our (the believing Gentiles’) mercy, they shall at length obtain mercy, Ro 11:31. All these several things are spoken of that Israel, or the body of people concerning whose rejection the apostle argues in the ninth chapter. And therefore the rejection which he there argues about cannot be absolute reprobation to eternal damnation, but to their being, as a nation, stripped of those honours and privileges of God’s peculiar Church and kingdom in this world, to which, at a certain future period, they shall again be restored.
VIII. Once more: whoever carefully peruses those three chapters will find that the people who in times past believed not God, but have NOW obtained mercy through the unbelief of the Jews, Ro 11:30, are the whole body of the believing Gentiles; the same who were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were graffed, contrary to nature, into the good olive tree, Ro 11:24; Ro 11:17; the same to whom God hath shown goodness, Ro 11:22; the WORLD that was reconciled, Ro 11:15; the GENTILES who were enriched by the diminishing of the Jews, Ro 11:12; to whom salvation came through their fall, Ro 11:11; the Gentiles who had attained to righteousness, (justification,) Ro 9:30; who had not been God’s people, nor believed; but now were his people, beloved, and children of the living God, Ro 9:25; Ro 9:26; even US whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, out also of the Gentiles, Ro 9:24, who are the vessels of mercy, on whom God has made known the riches of his glory, Ro 9:23; the vessels made unto honour, Ro 9:21. He speaks of the same body of men in all these places; namely, of the believing Gentiles principally, but not excluding the small remnant of the believing Jews, who were incorporated with them. And it is this body of men, whose calling and election he is proving, in whose case the purpose of God according to election stands good, Ro 9:11, and who are the children of the promise that are counted for the seed, Ro 9:8: these are the election, or the elect.
Now, concerning this called or elect body of people, or any particular person belonging to this body, the apostle writes thus, Ro 11:20-22: Well, because of unbelief, they (the Jews) were broken off, (reprobated, rejected,) and thou standest (in the Church among God’s called and elect) by faith; be not high minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, (the Jews,) take heed, lest he also spare not thee, (the Gentiles.) Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them (the Jews) which fell, severity; but towards thee (believing Gentiles) goodness, if thou continue in his goodness; otherwise thou also shalt be cut off, rejected, reprobated. This proves that the calling, and election, for which the apostle is arguing in the ninth chapter, is not absolute election unto eternal life, but to the present privileges of the Church-the honours and advantages of God’s peculiar people; which election, through unbelief and misimprovement, may be rendered void and come to nothing. See Dr. Taylor, p. 330, &c.
From thus carefully considering the apostle’s discourse, and taking in his scope and design, and weighing the different expressions he uses, in connection with the Scripture facts and Scripture phrases employed in describing those facts, we must be fully convinced that the doctrines of eternal, absolute, unconditional election and reprobation have no place here, and that nothing but a pre-established creed, and a total inattention to the apostles scope and design, could ever have induced men to bend these scriptures to the above purpose, and thus to endeavour to establish as articles of faith, doctrines which, far from producing glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will among men, have filled the Church of God with contention, set every man’s sword against his brother, and thus done the work of Apollyon in the name of Christ. If men will maintain these and such like for Scriptural doctrines, it is but reasonable to request that it be done in the spirit of the Gospel.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
As it is written; viz. in Isa 8:14, and Isa 28:16; to which prophecy also the apostle Peter refers, in 1Pe 2:6-8.
A stumbling stone; Jesus Christ is properly a corner-stone, elect and precious; but accidentally and eventually a stumbling-stone, Luk 2:34.
Ashamed; or confounded. Isaiah saith, he that believeth; the apostle, whosoever believeth; which is much the same: an indefinite proposition is equivalent to a universal. The prophet saith: He that believeth shall not make haste; the apostle, he
shall not be ashamed. He that is rash and hasty will at last be ashamed and confounded.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
33. As it is written (Isa 8:14;Isa 28:16).
Behold, c.TwoMessianic predictions are here combined, as is not unusual inquotations from the Old Testament. Thus combined, the predictionbrings together both the classes of whom the apostle is treating:those to whom Messiah should be only a stone of stumbling, and thosewho were to regard Him as the Cornerstone of all their hopes. Thusexpounded, this chapter presents no serious difficulties, none whichdo not arise out of the subject itself, whose depths are unfathomablewhereas on every other view of it the difficulty of giving it anyconsistent and worthy interpretation is in our judgment insuperable.
Note, (1) To speak and act”in Christ,” with a conscience not only illuminated, butunder the present operation of the Holy Ghost, is not peculiar to thesupernaturally inspired, but is the privilege, and ought to be theaim, of every believer (Ro 9:1).(2) Grace does not destroy, but only intensify and elevate, thefeelings of nature; and Christians should study to show this (Rom 9:2;Rom 9:3). (3) To belong to thevisible Church of God, and enjoy its high and holy distinctions, isof the sovereign mercy of God, and should be regarded with devoutthankfulness (Rom 9:4; Rom 9:5).(4) Yet the most sacred external distinctions and privileges willavail nothing to salvation without the heart’s submission to therighteousness of God (Ro9:31-33). (5) What manner of persons ought “God’s elect”to bein humility, when they remember that He hath savedthem and called them, not according to their works, but according toHis own purpose and grace, given them in Christ Jesus before theworld began (2Ti 1:9); inthankfulness, for “Who maketh thee to differ, and whathast thou that thou didst not receive?” (1Co4:7); in godly jealousy over themselves; remembering that”God is not mocked,” but “whatsoever a man soweth thatshall he also reap” (Ga 6:7);in diligence “to make our calling and election sure”(2Pe 1:10); and yet in calmconfidence that “whom God predestinates, and calls, andjustifies, them (in due time) He also glorifies” (Ro8:30). (6) On all subjects which from their very nature liebeyond human comprehension, it will be our wisdom to set down whatGod says in His word, and has actually done in His procedure towardsmen, as indisputable, even though it contradict the results at whichin the best exercise of our limited judgment we may have arrived (Ro9:14-23). (7) Sincerity in religion, or a general desire to besaved, with assiduous efforts to do right, will prove fatal as aground of confidence before God, if unaccompanied by implicitsubmission to His revealed method of salvation (Ro9:31-33). (8) In the rejection of the great mass of the chosenpeople, and the inbringing of multitudes of estranged Gentiles, Godwould have men to see a law of His procedure, which the judgment ofthe great day will more vividly reveal that “the last shall befirst and the first last” (Mt20:16).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
As it is written,…. In Isa 8:14; for the beginning and end of this citation are out of the latter, and the middle of it out of the former. This is an instance of , “skipping”, from place to place, concerning which the rules with the Jews were s, that the reader
“might skip from text to text, but he might not skip from prophet to prophet, except only in the twelve prophets, only he might not skip from the end of the book to the beginning; also they might skip in the prophets, but not in the law;”
which rules are exactly complied with by the apostle. The beginning of this citation is out of Isa 28:16:
behold I lay in Zion. The “stone” said to be laid in Zion, is by the “Chaldee paraphrast” interpreted of a “king”; by R. David Kimchi, of King Hezekiah, and by Jarchi of the King Messiah; and is truly applied by the apostle to Jesus Christ: the layer of this stone is God the Father, who laid him as the foundation stone, in his eternal purposes and decrees, in his counsels and covenant, in promise and in prophecy, in the mission of him into this world, and in the preaching of the everlasting Gospel: the place where he is laid is Zion, meaning either literally Judea or Jerusalem, where the Messiah was to appear, whither he came, and from whence his Gospel went forth; or mystically the church, where he is laid as the foundation of it, and of the salvation of all the members thereof; though, through the sin and unbelief of others, he proves to be
a stumbling stone, and rock of offence; which phrases are to be seen in Isa 8:14, and are spoken of, and ascribed to a divine person, even to the Lord of hosts; and are by the Targumist thus paraphrased, “and if ye obey not”, , “his word shall be for revenge, and for a stone smiting, and a rock of offence”, and in the Talmud t, it is said, that
“the son of David (the Messiah) shall not come until the two houses of the fathers are destroyed out of Israel; and these are the head of the captivity which is in Babylon, and the prince in the land of Israel, as it is said, Isa 8:14.”
So that, according to the ancient Jews, this passage belongs to the Messiah, and is properly made use of for this purpose by the apostle, who had seen the accomplishment of it in the Jews; who stumbled at the outward meanness of Jesus of Nazareth, at his parentage, the manner of his birth, his education, the mean appearance of himself and followers; at his company and audience, his ministry, miracles, death, and the manner of it; and so believed not in him, for righteousness, life, and salvation; and thus it came about that they did not attain, or come up to the law of righteousness, or the righteousness of the law: but
whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed; that is, who believes in Christ unto righteousness, who builds his faith, and hope of eternal salvation on him, the foundation God has laid in Zion, and at which the unbelieving Jews stumbled and fell; he shall neither be ashamed here nor hereafter: he shall not be ashamed of his faith and hope in Christ; nor of Christ, as the Lord his righteousness; nor shall he be ashamed or confounded at his appearing, but shall be justified before men and angels, and be received into his kingdom and glory. There is some difference between the passage as here cited, and as it stands in Isa 28:16, where it is read, “he that believeth shall not make haste”: either to lay any other foundation, being fully satisfied with this, which is laid by God; or shall not make haste to flee away, through fear of any enemy, or of any danger, being safe as built on this foundation; and so shall never fall, be moved, or ashamed and confounded. Some have fancied a various reading, but without any reason. A very learned Oriental critic u of our own nation has observed, that the Arabic words “Haush” “Hish” answer to the Hebrew word, , the prophet uses, and which have three significations in them, “hasten”, to “fear”, and be “ashamed”; the first of these is retained here by the Jewish commentators and modern versions; the second by the “Chaldee paraphrast”, and Syriac translation; and the third by the Septuagint, and the apostle; and they may be all taken into sense, for he that is afraid runs about here and there, and at length is put to shame and confusion.
s T. Bab. Megilla, fol. 24. 1. Yoma, fol. 69. 2. Maimon. Tephilla, c. 12. sect. 14. t T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 38. 1. u Pocock. Not. Miscell. in Port. Mosis, p. 10, 11.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Paul repeats the phrase just used in the whole quotation from Isa 8:14 with the same idea in “a rock of offence” ( , “a rock of snare,” a rock which the Jews made a cause of stumbling). The rest of the verse is quoted from Isa 28:16. However, the Hebrew means “shall not make haste” rather than “shall not be put to shame.” In 1Pe 2:8 we have the same use of these Scriptures about Christ. Either Peter had read Romans or both Paul and Peter had a copy of Christian Testimonia like Cyprian’s later.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Offense [] . See on Mt 5:29; Mt 16:9 3.
Shall not be ashamed [ ] . The Hebrew in Isa 28:16 is, shall not make haste, or flee hastily. The quotation combines Isa 8:4 and Isa 28:16.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “As it is written,” (kathos gegraptai) “Just as it has been written,” This rejection of Christ by Israel had been predicted, Isa 8:14. Paul had read and accepted it as divine truth, as all men should, Psa 119:160.
2) “Behold I lay in Sion a stumblingstone,” (idou tithemi en Sion lithon proskammatos) “Behold I put, place, or set in Zion a stone of stumbling”; an occasion by which the willfully blind or misled blind might stumble; as the Jews did, 1Co 1:23. The term Sion is the lofty Greek term for Zion, center of holy worship-Jesus Christ founder of the church, source of true glory – service and worship today, Eph 3:21; Mat 5:15-16.
3) “And rock of offence,” (kai petra skandalou) “And a rock of offence,” of scandalizing; the Jews offended at that rock of Salvation which was Christ; Psa 118:22; Mat 21:42; Act 4:11-12.
4) “And whosoever believeth on him,” (kai ho pistenon ep auto) “And he who believes on him,” puts his trust in him; This was the true message of salvation as preached by all Old Testament prophets, Act 10:43; Rom 4:4-6; Rom 4:16.
5) “Shall not be ashamed,” (ou kataischunthesetai) “Will not be put to shame,” or placed in position to be ashamed, will not be a blushing; not be disappointed; true faith in Christ never brought regret or shame to any child of God, Isa 28:16; 1Pe 2:6-8. Paul was not ashamed of his name – neither should any believer be, Rom 1:16.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
33. And every one who believes in him shall not be ashamed. He subjoins this testimony from another part for the consolation of the godly; as though he had said, “Because Christ is called the stone of stumbling, there is no reason that we should dread him, or entertain fear instead of confidence; for he is appointed for ruin to the unbelieving, but for life and resurrection to the godly.” As then the former prophecy, concerning the stumbling and offence, is fulfilled in the rebellious and unbelieving, so there is another which is intended for the godly, and that is, that he is a firm stone, precious, a corner-stone, most firmly fixed, and whosoever builds on it shall never fall. By putting shall not be ashamed instead of s hall not hasten or fall, he has followed the Greek Translator. It is indeed certain that the Lord in that passage intended to strengthen the hope of His people: and when the Lord bids us to entertain good hope, it hence follows that we cannot be ashamed. (317) See a passage like this in 1Pe 2:10
(317) The citation in this verse is made in a remarkable manner. The first part, “Behold I lay in Zion,” is taken from Isa 28:16; what follows, “a stone of stumbling and rock of offense,” is taken from Isa 8:14; and then the last words, “and whosoever believes in him shall not be ashamed,” are given from the preceding passage in Isa 28:16. The subject is the same.
With respect to the last clause Paul has followed the Septuagint, “shall not be ashamed.” But the Hebrew word, rendered in our version “shall not make haste,” will bear a similar meaning, and may be translated, shall not hurry or be confounded. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(33) Behold, I lay in Sion.A free combination of Isa. 28:16Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone; . . . he that believeth shall not make hasteand Isa. 8:14, And He shall be . . . for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel. In the first of these passages the prophet refers to the foundation-stone of the Temple as a symbol of the divine faithfulness; in the second to God Himself. St. Paul, like the Jewish Rabbis, applied both passages to the Messiah; not wrongly, for they foretold the triumph of the theocracy which was fulfilled in the Messiah. The same two quotations appear in 1Pe. 2:6-7, and with similar variation from the LXX., but they are there kept distinct.
Shall not be ashamed.So, too, the LXX. The Hebrew is, Shall not make haste.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
33. Behold This verse is a free blending together (after the manner of the Jewish writers) of Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16, both of which passages were applied by the Jews to the Messiah. (See our note on Mat 21:42, and Luk 2:34.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Rom 9:33. A stumblingstone What the unbelieving Jews stumbled at, St. Peter informs us, 1 Epist. Rom 2:8. They stumbled at the word: they were disgusted at the Gospel: the word which Christ and his Apostles preached, did not please them. It contradicted all their preconceived opinions; and, instead of continuing them to be the onlyvisible church of God in all the world, and their law and religious ceremonies the only rule of a place and interest in the peculiar kingdom of God upon earth, it entirely abolished the law in this respect; and freely took men of any nation into the peculiar kingdom of God, without any regard to the law of Moses, only upon faith in Christ. This was the word,the word of universal grace, at which the Jews stumbled. See Isa 8:14; Isa 28:16. 1Co 1:23 and Whitby.
Inferences.Let the affection which the Apostle expresses for the Jews, his countrymen and brethren according to the flesh, and the tender and pathetic representation that he makes of the privileges which they once enjoyed, awaken in our hearts an earnest solicitude, that they may by divine grace be brought back; that they may again be adopted into the family from which they have been cut off, again clothed with the glory which is departed from them; that, through him who was given for a covenant to the people, they may receive the law of life and grace, be formed to that spiritual service which it introduces, instead of their pompous ritual, and embrace the promises on which the faith and hope of their illustrious fathers were fixed.
Let it likewise teach us spiritual compassion for our kindred, who are strangers to Christ, and let us be willing to submit to the greatest difficulties, and think nothing too much to be done or borne for their recovery.
Let our souls pay a humble homage to him who is, in such an incommunicable and sublime sense, the Son of God, as to be himself over all, God blessed for evermore. With prostrate reverence let us adore him, as our Lord, and our God, and repose that unbounded confidence in him which such an assemblage of divine perfections will warrant, putting our most hearty amen to every ascription of glory, to every anthem of praise, addressed to him.
And since we see that many of the children of Abraham, and of Isaac, failed of any share in the special promises of God, let us learn to depend on no privilege of birth, on no relation to the greatest and best of men. May we seek to be inserted into the family of God, by his adopting love in Christ Jesus, and to maintain the lively exercise of faith; without which no child of Abraham was ever acceptable to God, and with which none of the children of strangers have ever failed of a share in his mercy and favour.
Let us also learn humbly to adore the righteousness and holiness of God, in all the most amazing displays of his sovereignty, which we are sure are always consistent with it. Let us own his right to confer on whom he pleases, those favours which none of us can pretend to have deserved. He has of his mere goodness given us those privileges, as Christians, and as Protestants, which he has withheld from most nations under heaven. Let us adore his distinguishing favour to us, and arrogate nothing to ourselves.
Long did his patience wait on us; and let that patience be for ever adored! It shall be glorified even in those that perish: for he is so far from destroying innocent creatures by a mere arbitrary act of power and terror, that he endureth with much long-suffering, those who by their own incorrigible wickedness prove vessels of wrath, and whom the whole assembled world shall confess fitted for the destruction to which they shall finally be consigned. That after long abuse of mercy they are hardened, and perhaps after long hardness are at length destroyed: yea, that some of the vilest of men are exalted by Providence to a station that makes their crimes conspicuous, as those of Pharaoh, till at length he shews forth his power the more awefully, and makes his name the more illustrious by their ruin, is certainly consistent with that justice which the Judge of the whole earth will never violate.
But if, in tracing subjects of this kind, difficulties arise beyond the stretch of our feeble thought, let us remember that we are men, and let us not dare to reply against God. Retiring into our own ignorance and weakness, as those that are less than nothing, and vanity, before him, let us dread by any arrogant censure to offend him who has so uncontrollable a power over us. As clay in the hand of the potter, so are we in the hand of the Lord our God. Let us acquiesce in the form that he has given us, in the rank that he has assigned us; and, instead of perplexing ourselves about those secrets of his counsels which it is impossible for us to penetrate, let us endeavour to purify ourselves from whatever would displease him; that so we may, in our respective stations, be vessels of honour, fit for the use of our Master now, and entitled to the promise of being acknowledged as his, in that glorious day when he shall make up his jewels.
How can we sinners of the Gentiles ever sufficiently acknowledge the goodness of God to us, in calling us to that full participation of Gospel-blessings which we enjoy! That in our native lands, where the name of the true God was so long unknown, we should have the honour of being called his children! Oh, that we may indeed be so, not only by an external profession, but by regenerating grace!
Blessed be God that there is a seed remaining! It is the preservation of the people among which it is found; and had it not been found among us, we had probably long since been made a seat of desolation. May it increase in the rising age, that the pledges of our continued peace and prosperity may be more assured, till our peace be like a river, and our salvation like the waves of the sea.
It will be so, if we be awakened seriously to inquire how we may be justified before God, and seek that invaluable blessing in the way here pointed out; if we seek it, not as by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ. He has, in this respect, been to many a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. May divine grace teach us the necessity of building upon him, of resting upon him the whole stress of our eternal hopes! Then shall they not sink into disappointment and ruin; then shall we not flee away ashamed in that aweful day, when the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters of that final deluge of divine wrath shall overflow every hiding-place, but that which God has prepared for us in his own Son.
REFLECTIONS.1st, The Jewish bigots looked upon St. Paul as a signal apostate, and persecuted him with peculiar virulence and enmity. He wished therefore to soften their exasperated spirits, while he makes profession of his own tender concern for their welfare and salvation. And there is a peculiar propriety in his introduction, when we consider the offensive truths which he was about to advance.
1. He makes a solemn protestation of the very fervent regard that he bore towards them. I say the truth in Christ, solemnly appealing to him who is the Searcher of hearts, and knoweth that I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost to the simplicity and sincerity of what I am going to say, that, far from entertaining the least prejudice or ill-will against my countrymen, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, feeling the acutest pangs of grief, when I think of their fearful condition, and what must be the inevitable consequences of their unbelief. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, ( ) content to be cut off from all my privileges as an Apostle, and to be separated from the society of the faithful with shame and disgrace, yea, to undergo the most ignominious and tormenting death, for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
2. He mentions the distinguished privileges with which they had been favoured of God, which could not but make their rejection peculiarly grievous to him: who are Israelites, bearing the name of their eminent progenitor Jacob; to whom pertaineth the adoption, taken into that covenant of peculiarity in which God regarded the whole nation as his visible church, Exo 4:22 and the glory, the ark, the Shechinah, the mercy-seat, the tokens and emblems of the divine presence in the midst of them; and the covenants, the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, and renewed with Isaac and Jacob, and that of Sinai with the whole body of Israel; and the giving of the law, containing God’s ordinances, moral, judicial, and ceremonial; and the service of God, in what manner his worship should be performed; and the promises, of temporal prosperity, and of the Messiah and his great salvation; whose are the fathers, the descendants of the famed patriarchs; and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, the promised seed of Abraham, in his human nature; but who, in his divine, is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen! Note; The divinity of our incarnate Saviour is a chief article of our creed. Thereon depends the perfection of his Atonement on our behalf.
2nd, Grief for his unhappy countrymen filled the Apostle’s heart: but, though the generality of them perished, the promise made to Abraham would not be frustrated. He would not therefore have them suppose as though the word of God had taken none effect, and failed of its accomplishment, because they believed not. For they are not all Israel, true Israelites, and savingly interested in the spiritual blessings of the covenant, which are of Israel, the offspring of Jacob; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children of God, as they flattered themselves. But I have enlarged so fully on these points in my Critical Notes, that I shall refer my readers to them, rather than run the hazard of being tedious. I will only just observe,
3rdly, That the Apostle, having proved the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles, suggests also the reason. What shall we say then, farther in vindication of God’s justice and free grace in these dispensations? It is evident, that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have notwithstanding attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, being accepted of God through faith in Christ Jesus: but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, and sought justification before God by their own obedience, hath not attained to the law of righteousness, not being capable of performing that immaculate righteousness which the law demands, and therefore being left under the curse as transgressors. Wherefore have they not attained? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, placing their dependence upon their own doings and duties, either in part, or in the whole, for their acceptance with God: for they stumbled at that stumbling-stone, the crucified Galilean, whose lowly appearance offended them, and they could not think of embracing him as their Messiah: As it is written in Isaiah, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone, and rock of offence, that Messiah who should be the tried stone and sure foundation to those who believed, and would to those who rejected him be as the rock which dashes those to pieces who fall thereon: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed: though the generality perish in their impenitence and unbelief, yet those who dare perseveringly trust him for pardon, life, and salvation, shall never be disappointed of their hopes, but find him a Saviour to the uttermost. Note; Nothing is so fatal to the soul as dependence upon our own righteousness, either in the whole or in part, for acceptance with God; while those who, self-despairing, fly to the righteousness of faith revealed in the Gospel, are sure to be justified from all things, and, if they continue in this faith, which always works by love, shall be saved with an everlasting salvation.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rom 9:33 . This . . ensued and this is the herein in conformity with the prophetic declaration, according to which Christ is laid as the stone of stumbling in Israel ( , as the theocratic seat of the people), and faith on Him would have been that very thing which would have preserved them from the forfeiture of salvation.
Isa 28:16 ; Isa 8:14 are blended into one declaration, with a free but pertinent variation both from the original and also from the LXX. With Isaiah , in the first passage, the theocracy the kingdom of Jehovah, whose sacred basis and central seat is the temple is the stone laid by God; and in the second, God Himself is the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence for His enemies. But Paul (comp. 1Pe 2:6-8 ) justly perceives in the passages prophecies of the Messiah (as do also the Rabbins), and, in connection with the Messianic character, of all the glory and triumph of the theocracy, the fulfiller of which is the Messiah.
. . ] he who relies on Him , in the Messianic fulfilment: he who believes on Christ . Comp. Rom 10:11 ; 1Ti 1:16 ; 1Pe 2:6 ; Luk 24:25 . Christ, the object of faith, is conceived of as He to whom faith adheres as its foundation (comp. Bernhardy, p. 250); there is therefore no need of the circumlocution: “fidem in Deo ponit Christo fretus ” (van Hengel). See also on Mat 27:42 , and comp. , Rom 15:12 . We may add that , if it were the genuine reading, would not have the emphasis; but the latter lies upon , as the opposite of .
] The LXX. have this verb ( ), apparently deviating from the original text, Isa 28:16 , where probably they have merely given an inaccurate translation of , according to the approximate sense, and have not adopted another reading, namely (Reiche, Olshausen, Hofmann).
In the sense of the Messianic fulfilment of the saying, “he will not be put to shame” means, “ he will not forfeit the Messianic salvation .” Comp. on Rom 5:5 .
REMARK.
The contents of Rom 9:6-29 , as they have been unfolded by pure exegesis, certainly exclude, when taken in and by themselves, the idea of a decree of God conditioned by human moral self-activity, as indeed God’s absolute activity, taken as such by itself, cannot depend on that of the individual. On the other hand, a fatalistic determinism , the “ tremendum mysterium ” of Calvin, which, following the precedent of Augustine, robs man of his self-determination and free personal attitude towards salvation, and makes him the passive object of divine sovereign will, may just as little be derived as a Pauline doctrine from our passage. It cannot be so, because our passage is not to be considered as detached from the following (Rom 9:30-33 , chap. Rom 10:11 ); and because, generally, the countless exhortations of the apostle to obedience of faith, to stedfastness of faith and Christian virtue, as well as all his admonitions on the possibility of losing salvation, and his warnings against falling from grace, are just so many evidences against that view, which puts aside the divine will of love, and does away the essence of human morality and responsibility. See also, against the Calvinistic exposition, Beyschlag, p. 2 ff. If we should assume, with Reiche and Kllner, Fritzsche and Krehl, that Paul, in his dialectic ardour, has allowed himself to be carried away into self-contradiction , we should thus have a self-contradiction so palpable, and yet so extremely grave and dangerous in a religious and ethical aspect, making the means of grace illusory, and striking so heavily at the Christian moral idea of divine holiness and of human freedom, that we should least of all suppose this very apostle to be capable of it; for, on the one hand, his penetration and his dialectic ability well might , just as, on the other hand, his apostolic illumination in particular, and the clearness and depth of his own moral experience must , have guarded him against it. But this affords no justification of the practice which has been followed by those of anti-predestinarian views from the time of Origen and Chrysostom (see Luthardt, vom freien Willen , p. 14 ff.) until now (see especially Tholuck on Rom 9:16-18 ; Rom 9:20-22 , and also Weiss, ib .; comp. Gerlach, letzte Dinge , 1869, p, 159), of importing into the clear and definite expressions of the apostle in this place, and reading between the lines, the moral self-determination and spontaneity of man as the correlate factor to the divine volition. On the contrary, a correct judgment of the deterministic propositions of Rom 9:15-23 lies in the middle between the admission, which is psychologically and morally impossible, of a self-contradiction, and the importation, which is exegetically impossible, of conceptions of which the apostolic expression is the stark opposite somewhat as follows. Seeing that the mode of the concurrence, so necessary in the moral world, of the individual freedom and spontaneity of man on one side, and the absolute self-determination and universal efficiency of God on the other, which latter, however, as such by no means lacks the immanent law of holiness (against the objection of Beyschlag, p. 20), is incomprehensible by human reflection, so long, that is, as it does not pass out of the sphere of the Christian fundamental view into the unbiblical identity-sphere of the pantheistic view, in which indeed freedom has no place at all; as often as we treat only one of the two truths: “God is absolutely free and all-efficient,” and “Man has moral freedom, and is, in virtue of his proper self-determination and responsibility as liberum agens , the author of his salvation or perdition,” and carry it out in a consistent theory and therefore in a onesided method, we are compelled to speak in such a manner, that the other truth appears to be annulled . Only appears , however; for, in fact, all that takes place in this case is a temporary and conscious withdrawing of attention from the other. In the present instance Paul found himself in this case, and he expresses himself according to this mode of view, not merely in a passing reference, Rom 9:20-21 (Beyschlag), but in the whole reasoning of Rom 9:6-29 . In opposition to the Jewish conceit of descent and of works, he desired to establish the free and absolute sovereign power of the divine will and action, and that the more decisively and exclusively, the less he would leave any ground for the arrogant illusion of the Jews, that God must be gracious to them. The apostle has here wholly taken his position on the absolute standpoint of the theory of pure dependence upon God, and that with all the boldness of clear consistency; but only until he has done justice to the polemical object which he has in view. He then returns (see Rom 9:30 ff.) from that abstraction to the human-moral standpoint of practice, so that he allows the claims of both modes of consideration to stand side by side , just as they exist side by side within the limits of human thought. The contemplation which lies beyond these limits of the metaphysical relation of essential interdependence between the two, namely objectively divine, and subjectively human, freedom and activity of will, necessarily remained outside and beyond his sphere of view; as he would have had no occasion at all in this place to enter upon this problem, seeing that it was incumbent upon him to crush the Jewish pretensions with the one side only of it the absoluteness of God. The fact that, and the extent to which, the divine elective determination is nevertheless no “delectus militaris ,” but is immanently regulated in God Himself by His holiness, and consequently also conditioned by moral conditions on the human side, does not enter into his consideration at all for the moment. It is introduced, however, in Rom 9:30 ff., when the onesided method of consideration temporarily pursued is counterbalanced, and the ground, which had been given up for a while in an apologetic interest to the doctrinal definition of an absolute decree, is again taken away. Comp. also Beck l. c ., and Baur, neut. Theol . p. 182 ff. But when Beyschlag places chap. 9 under the point of view, that the discussion therein relates not to a decree, antecedent to time , for men’s everlasting salvation or perdition, but only to their adoption or non-adoption into the historical kingdom of God (thus into Christianity), and that of the Jews and Gentiles as the two groups of mankind , not of individual men, and when he finds the true key of exposition in this view; his idea cannot be justified by the simple exegesis of chap. 9, and without anticipating the contents of chap. 10 and 11; and the difficulty in principle , which is involved in the entirely free self-determination of the divine will, remains while it is transferred to the sphere of the action of God in the historical government of the world even thus unremoved.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
REFLECTIONS
How sure, how certain, and how unalterably fixed, are the ways and purposes of Jehovah. From eternity the whole is ordered in all things, and sure; and through the whole time-state of the Church, God’s purposes have been, and must be, fulfilled. As in the eternity of the Lord’s nature, so in his ordinations there can be nothing liable to change. His sovereignty is the rule of all his actions, and his will and pleasure the invariable standard of good.
Sweetly, in relation to his Church, all is planned in wisdom; and nothing can arise to alter his ways towards his people. Electing love gave birth to the Church in Christ. And in the instance of Jacob and Esau it hath been shewn, that not only before the children had done any act of good or evil, but, that the purpose of election might stand, it was said, that the elder should serve the younger; so that electing grace preserved what electing love had began. Reader! it is very blessed when the proud sails of human confidence give way to the sovereign decrees of God; and we hail God’s appointments as the result of God’s favor to his Church in Christ. Oh! the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Ver. 33.] See Trapp on “ 1Pe 2:6 “
Shall not be ashamed ] That is, shall be confirmed, comforted, established. The Scripture loves to speak with the least in promising good to God’s people: or else by way of exclamation, “Oh how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!” q.d. it is unutterable; fitter to be believed than possible to be discoursed,Psa 31:19Psa 31:19 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
33 .] Appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah , as justifying this comparison of Christ to a stone of stumbling. The citation is gathered from two places in Isaiah. The ‘stone of stumbling and rock of offence,’ mentioned Isa 8:14 , is substituted for the ‘corner-stone elect, precious,’ of ch. Isa 28:16 . The solution of this is very simple. Isa 8:14 was evidently interpreted by the Jews themselves of the Messiah: for Simeon, Luk 2:34 , when speaking of the child Jesus as the Messiah, expressly adduces the prophecy as about to be fulfilled. Similarly Isa 28:16 was interpreted by the Chaldee Targum, the Babylonish Talmud (Tract Sanhedrin, fol. xxxviii. 1, Stuart), &c. What was there then to prevent the Apostle from giving to this Stone, plainly foretold as to be laid in Zion, that designation which prophecy also justifies, and which bears immediately on the matter here in hand? The translation of Isa 8:14 is after the Heb., the LXX having apparently read differently. See 1Pe 2:6-8 , where the same two texts are joined, and also Psa 118:22 (Psalms 117:22).
, LXX ( Isa 28:16 ), , gives a secondary meaning of the Heb. , ‘shall not make haste .’ i.e. shall not fly in terror, shall not be confounded.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rom 9:33 . Yet paradoxical as this may seem, it agrees with the words of Scripture. The quotation is a mixture of Isa 28:16 ; Isa 8:14 : and it is interesting to remark that the same passages are quoted in conjunction, though they are not mixed as here, in 1Pe 2:6-8 . The original reference of them is not exactly Messianic. The stone laid in Zion (Isa 28:16 ) is indeed interpreted by Delitzsch of the kingdom of promise as identified with its Sovereign Head, but the stone of stumbling (Isa 8:14 ) is unequivocally God Himself: all who do not give Him honour are broken against His government as on a stone, or caught in it as in a snare. Paul inserts after (as Peter also does), and applies the figure of the stone in both cases to Christ, and to the contrary relations which men may assume to Him. Some stumble over Him (as the Jews, for the reasons just given); others build on Him and find Him a sure foundation, or (without a figure) put their trust in Him and are not put to shame. Cf. Psa 118:22 , Mat 21:42 , 1Co 3:11 , Act 4:12 , Eph 2:20 .
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Behold. App-133.
Sion. App-68.
offence. See 1Co 1:23.
whosoever. The texts read “he who”.
believeth. App-150.
ashamed = put to shame. See Rom 5:6. Quoted from Isa 28:16.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
33.] Appeal to the prophecy of Isaiah, as justifying this comparison of Christ to a stone of stumbling. The citation is gathered from two places in Isaiah. The stone of stumbling and rock of offence, mentioned Isa 8:14, is substituted for the corner-stone elect, precious, of ch. Isa 28:16. The solution of this is very simple. Isa 8:14 was evidently interpreted by the Jews themselves of the Messiah: for Simeon, Luk 2:34, when speaking of the child Jesus as the Messiah, expressly adduces the prophecy as about to be fulfilled. Similarly Isa 28:16 was interpreted by the Chaldee Targum, the Babylonish Talmud (Tract Sanhedrin, fol. xxxviii. 1, Stuart), &c. What was there then to prevent the Apostle from giving to this Stone, plainly foretold as to be laid in Zion, that designation which prophecy also justifies, and which bears immediately on the matter here in hand? The translation of Isa 8:14 is after the Heb.,-the LXX having apparently read differently. See 1Pe 2:6-8, where the same two texts are joined, and also Psa 118:22 (Psalms 117:22).
, LXX (Isa 28:16), , gives a secondary meaning of the Heb. , shall not make haste. i.e. shall not fly in terror, shall not be confounded.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rom 9:33. , ) LXX., Isa 28:16, , , , , , , , , , Isa 8:14. , . Such a one will not be made ashamed, and so will obtain glory; comp. ch. Rom 5:2; Rom 5:5. This denotes eternal life, Isa 45:17.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rom 9:33
Rom 9:33
even as it is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence:-It had been foretold that God would lay in Zion a stone of stumbling. That stone of stumbling is the Lord Jesus Christ. [There was never a prophecy more literally fulfilled. When he spoke plainly, they were offended; and when he spoke in parables, they were displeased. When he healed, they took offense; when he did not heal and refused to give a sign, they were dissatisfied. If he came to the feast, they sought his life; if he did not come, they busied themselves searching for him. Nothing that he did or failed to do pleased. His whole earthly life developed an ever-increasing dislike for him and bitter animosity for his claims.]
and he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame.-Whosoever believes on him shall not be brought to shame at the judgment seat of Christ. [The man who believes in Jesus Christ with his whole heart shall not be agitated or thrown into commotion by fear or want of success, shall not be disappointed in his hope, and shall never be ashamed that he consecrated his life to God through Jesus Christ. They who do not believe in Jesus Christ shall be agitated, fall, and sink into eternal shame and contempt. (Dan 12:2).]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Behold: Psa 118:22, Isa 8:14, Isa 8:15, Isa 28:16, Mat 21:42, Mat 21:44, 1Pe 2:7, 1Pe 2:8
and whosoever: Rom 5:5, Rom 10:11, Psa 25:2, Psa 25:3, Psa 25:20, Isa 45:17, Isa 54:4, Joe 2:26, Joe 2:27, Phi 1:20, 2Ti 1:12, 1Jo 2:28
ashamed: or, confounded, 1Pe 2:6
Reciprocal: 2Sa 5:7 – Zion 1Ch 11:5 – the castle Job 6:20 – confounded Psa 2:12 – Blessed Psa 22:5 – and were Psa 71:1 – do I Pro 4:12 – thou shalt Isa 49:23 – for they Jer 6:21 – I will Eze 3:20 – and I lay Hos 14:9 – but Zep 3:11 – shalt thou Zec 3:9 – the stone Mat 5:30 – offend Mat 11:6 – whosoever Mar 12:10 – The stone Luk 7:23 – General Rom 4:11 – father Rom 14:13 – put 1Co 1:23 – unto the Jews Gal 3:6 – as Gal 5:11 – the offence 2Ti 1:8 – ashamed 1Jo 2:10 – occasion of stumbling Rev 14:1 – mount
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
:33
Romans 9:33. The stumbling of the people of Israel had been predicted, and Paul cites it which is in Isa 8:14 Isa 28:16. It is also in Psa 118:22 and 1Pe 2:6-8. The Jews’ prejudice against Christ caused them to reject His system or righteousness.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rom 9:33. As it is written, etc. Two passages from Isaiah are here combined.
Stone of stumbling, etc. In Isa 8:14, God Himself is represented as being for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to His enemies.
This was properly applied to the Messiah by the Jews, and to our Lord by the Apostle. But he substitutes these expressions for similar ones in Isa 28:16, where the figure of a corner-stone occurs, applied by both Peter and Paul to Christ. This combination is both justifiable and natural. In both cases the supreme revelation of Jehovah in the Messiah is referred to; in one passage as a sanctuary for His people, but for a stone of stumbling, etc., to His enemies; in the other as a corner-stone laid in Zion, for a secure foundation.
He who believeth on him, etc. In chap. Rom 10:11 this clause is introduced again, but there every one (E. V. incorrectly: whosoever) occurs, which is to be omitted here, according to the best authorities. In the LXX. it is not found; nor could it be emphatic here, since the antithesis to stumbled makes believeth the prominent word.
Shall not be put to shame. The Hebrew is: shall not make haste, or, flee hastily, with a primary reference to escaping from danger, but the LXX., from which Paul varies very slightly, gives the meaning with substantial correctness (comp. confounded in the margin of the E. V.). This negative promise is rightly regarded as implying a positive blessing. As though he had said: Because Christ is called the stone of stumbling, there is no reason that we should dread Him, for He is appointed for life to believers (Calvin).
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. What use and office our Lord Jesus Christ is of to his church: he is a stone, a corner-stone, the chief corner-stone; a corner-stone for strength, the chief corner-stone for ornament and beauty. As the corner-stone bears the weight of the building, so doth Christ bear the weight of his church, and supports all the pillars and supporters of it; yet this precious corner-stone is accidentally and eventually a stone of stumbling, and rock of offence. Some are offended at the poverty of his person and the meanness of his condition, others at the sublimity and sanctity of his doctrine; some are offended at his cross, others at his free grace; but such as instead of being offended at him do believe on him, shall never be ashamed of, or confounded by, him.
Learn hence, That those who, according to the direction of the gospel, do believe on our Lord Jesus Christ, shall never have cause to be ashamed.
Here note, What they shall not be ashamed of, when and why they shall not be ashamed: 1. What the sincere believer shall not be ashamed of.
Answer He shall never be ashamed of his choice; he shall not be ashamed of his profession; he shall never be ashamed of the cause and interest of Christ, which he has owned and vindicated in the world: he shall never be ashamed of the work and service of Christ, nor of any time sincerely spent in that work and service; he shall never be ashamed of his reproaches and sufferings, tribulation and persecutions, for the sake of Christ.
In a word, he shall never be ashamed hereafter that he never was ashamed here, either of Christ and his gospel, his work and service, or his cause and interest.
Note, 2. When the believer shall not be ashamed; namely, when he is called forth to bear his testimony for Christ before the world, at the hour of death, and at the day of judgment: neither the dreadfulness of the day, nor the majesty of the judge, nor the number of the accusers, nor the impartiality of the sentence, nor the separation that shall then be made, will in the least cause him to be ashamed.
Note, 3. Why the believer shall never be ashamed.
Answer The cause of shame is removed and taken away, namely, sin; those only from whom he can reasonably fear shame, will never be ashamed of him; he can look God and Christ, his own conscience, and the whole world, in the face, without shame and blushing.
O! that sinners would now be ashamed of their unbelief, which otherwise will put them to eternal shame, and bring upon them everlasting confusion in the day of the Lord. Whosoever believeth on him shall never be ashamed; but he that believeth not in him, shame and the wrath of God abideth on him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Vv. 33. Paul combines in this quotation Isa. 27:16 and Isa 8:14, and that in such a way that he borrows the first and last words of his quotation from the former of these passages, and those of the middle from the latter. It is hard to conceive how a great number of commentators can apply the saying of Isaiah, Isa 28:16 : Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone…etc., to the theocracy itself (see Meyer). The theocracy is the edifice which is raised in Zion; how should it be its foundation? According to Rom 8:14, the foundation is Jehovah; and it is on this stone that the unbelieving Israel of both kingdoms stumble, while on this rock he that believes takes refuge. In chap. 28 the figure is somewhat modified; for Jehovah is no longer the foundation; it is He who lays it. The foundation here is therefore Jehovah in His final manifestation, the Messiah. We thus understand why Paul has combined the two passages so closely; the one explains the other. It is in the sense which we have just established that the same figure is applied to Christ, Luk 2:34; Luk 20:17-18; 1Pe 2:4 (comp. Bible annote on the two passages of Isaiah quoted by the apostle). The terms stone, rock, express the notion of consistency. We break ourselves struggling against the Messiah, rather than break Him.
The two words and , stumbling and scandal, are not wholly synonymous. The former denotes the shock, the latter the fall resulting from it; and so the former, the moral conflict between Israel and the Messiah, and the latter, the people’s unbelief. The first figure applies, therefore, to all the false judgments passed by the Jews on the conduct of Jesus
His healings on the Sabbath, His alleged contempt of the law, His blasphemies, etc.; the second, to the rejection of the Messiah, and, in His person, of Jehovah Himself.
The adj. , every one, which the T. R. adds to the word he who believeth, is omitted by the Alexs. and the Greco-Latins, and also by the Peshito. The context also condemns it. The point to be brought out here is not that whosoever believeth is saved, but: that it is enough to believe in order to be so. The word every one (which is not in Isaiah) has been imported from Rom 10:11, where, as we shall see, it is in its place.
The Hebrew verb, which the LXX. have translated by: shall not be confounded, strictly signifies: shall not make haste (flee away), which gives the same meaning. There is no need, therefore, to hold, with several critics, a difference of reading in the Hebrew text (jabisch for jakisch).
General considerations on chap. ix.
Though we have not reached the end of the passage beginning with Rom 9:30, the essential thought being already expressed in Rom 9:30-33, we may from this point cast a glance backward at Romans 9 taken as a whole.
Three principal views as to the meaning of this chapter find expression in the numerous commentaries to which it has given rise:
1. Some think they can carry up the thought of Paul to complete logical unity, by maintaining that it boldly excludes human freedom, and makes all things proceed from one single factor, the sovereign will of God. Some of these are so sure of their view, that one of them, a Strasburg professor, wrote most lately: As to determinism, it would be to carry water to the Rhine, to seek to prove that this point of view is that of St. Paul.
2. Others think that the apostle expounds the two points of view side by side with one anotherthat of absolute predestination, to which speculative reflection leads, and that of human freedom, which experience teacheswithout troubling himself to reconcile them logically. This opinion is perhaps the most widespread among theologians at the present hour.
3. Finally, a third class think that in Paul’s view the fact of human freedom harmonizes logically with the principle of divine predestination, and think they can find in his very exposition the elements necessary to harmonize the two points of view. Let us pass under review each of these opinions.
I. In the first, we immediately distinguish three groups. In the first place: the particularistic predestinarians, who, whether in the salvation of some or in the perdition of others, see only the effect of the divine decree. Such, essentially, are St. Augustine, the Reformers, the theologians of Dort, and the churches which have preserved this type of doctrine down to our day, whether pushing the consequence the length of ascribing the fall itself and sin to the divine will (supralapsarians), like Zwingle, who goes so far as to say, in speaking of Esau: quem divina providentia creavit ut viveret atque impie viveret (see Th. p. 500); or whether they stop half way, and, while ascribing the fall to human freedom, make the divine decree of human election bear solely on those among lost men whom God is pleased to save (infralapsarians).
But, first, it is forgotten that the apostle does not think for a moment of speculating in a general way on the relation between human freedom and divine sovereignty, and that he is occupied solely with showing the harmony between the particular fact of the rejection of the Jews and the promises relating to their election. Then it would be impossible, if he really held this point of view, to acquit him of the charge of self-contradiction in all those sayings of his which assume1st. Man’s entire freedom in the acceptance or rejection of salvation (Rom 2:4; Rom 2:6-10, Rom 6:12-13); 2d. The possibility of one converted falling from the state of grace through want of vigilance or faithfulness (Rom 8:13; 1Co 10:1-12; Gal 5:4; Col 1:23, a passage where he says expressly: if at least ye persevere). Comp. also the words of Jesus Himself, Joh 5:40 : But ye will not come to me; Mat 23:37 : How often would I…but ye would not. Finally, throughout the whole chapter which immediately follows, as well as in the four verses we have just expounded, Rom 9:30-33, the decree of the rejection of the Jews is explained, not by the impenetrable mystery of the divine will, but by the haughty tenacity with which the Jews, notwithstanding all God’s warnings, affected to establish their own righteousness and perpetuate their purely temporary prerogative.
In this first class we meet, in the second place, with the group of the latitudinarian determinists, who seek to correct the harshness of the predestinarian point of departure by the width of the point reached; the final goal, indeed, according to them, is universal salvation. The world is a theatre on which there is in reality but one actor, God, who plays the entire piece, but by means of a series of personages who act under his impulse as simple automata. If some have bad parts to play, they have not to blame or complain of themselves for that; for their culpability is only apparent, and…the issue will be happy for them. All’s well that ends well. Such is the view of Schleiermacher and his school; it is that to which Farrar has just given his adherence in his great work on St. Paul.
But how are we to reconcile this doctrine of universal salvation, I do not say only with declarations such as those of Jesus, Mat 12:23 (neither in this world nor in the world to come), Mat 26:24 (it were better for that man that he had never been born), Mar 9:43-48, but also with the sayings of Paul himself, 2Th 1:9; Rom 8:13? These declarations, indeed, seem incompatible with the idea of a universal final salvation. Neither does this idea seem to us to arise from the sayings of the apostle here and there whence it is thought possible to deduce it, such as 1Co 15:22 (in Christ all made alive) and 1Co 15:28 (God all in all); for these passages refer only to the development of the work of salvation in believers. It is impossible to allow that a system according to which sin would be the act of God Himself, remorse an illusion arising from our limited and subjective viewpoint, and the whole conflict, so serious as it is between guilty man and God, a simple apparent embroilment with a view of procuring to us in the end the liveliest sensation of re-established harmonyentered for a single moment the mind of the apostle.
We may say as much of the third form in which this determinist point of view presents itself, that of pantheistic absorption. No one will ever succeed in explaining the words of the apostle by such a formula. Paul emphasizes too forcibly the value and permanence of personality, as well as the moral responsibility of man; and it must not be forgotten that if he says: God shall be all, he adds: in all.
In none of these three forms, therefore, can the system which makes everything, even evil, proceed from divine causality, be ascribed to Paul.
II. Must we take refuge in the idea of an internal contradiction attaching to the apostle’s mode of view, whether this contradiction be regarded as a logical inconsequence attributable to the weakness of his mind (so Reiche and Fritzsche, who go so far as to deplore that the apostle was not at the school of Aristotle rather than that of Gamaliel); or with Meyer, Reuss, and a host of others, the problem be regarded as insoluble in its very nature, and in consequence of the limits of the human mind; so that, as Meyer says, whenever we place ourselves at one of the two points of view, it is impossible to expound it without expressing ourselves in such a way as to deny the other, as has happened to Paul in this chapter?
We think that in the former case the most striking character of St. Paul’s mind is mistaken, his logical power, which does not allow him to stop short in the study of a question till he has thoroughly completed its elucidation. This characteristic we have seen throughout the whole of our Epistle. As to Meyer’s point of view, if Paul had really thought thus, he would not have failed, in view of this insoluble difficulty, to stop at least once in the course of his exposition to exclaim, after the fashion of Calvin: Mysterium horribile!
III. It is therefore certain that the apostle was not without a glimpse of the real solution of the apparent contradiction on which he was bordering throughout this whole passage. Was this solution, then, that which has been proposed by Julius Mller in his Sndenlehre, and which is found in several critics, according to which Paul in chap. 9 explains the conduct of God from a purely abstract point of view, saying what God has the right to do, speaking absolutely, but what He does not do in reality? It is difficult to believe that the apostle would have thus isolated the abstract right from its historical execution, and we have seen in Rom 9:21 et. seq. that Paul directly applies to the concrete case the view of right expounded in the instance of the potter.
Must we prefer the solution defended by Beyschlag in the wake of many other critics, according to which the question here relates solely to groups of men, and to those groups of men solely as to the providential part assigned them in the general course of God’s kingdom; but not to the lot of individuals, and much less still as to the matter of their final salvation? That it is so in regard to Esau and Jacob, does not seem to us open to doubt, since in those cases we have to do with national dispensations in the course of the preparatory economy. But it seems to me impossible to apply this solution to the essential point treated in the chapter, the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles. For among those rejected Jews, Paul proves an election of redeemed ones, who are certainly so, in virtue of their individual faith; and among those Gentile nations who are called, he is very far from thinking there are none but saved individuals; so that the vessels of wrath are not the Jewish nation as such, but the individual unbelievers in the nation; and the vessels of mercy are not the Gentile peoples as such, but the individual believers among them. The point in question therefore is, the lot of individual Jews or Gentiles. When Paul says: fitted to destruction and prepared unto glory, he is evidently thinking not only of a momentary rejection or acceptance, but of the final condemnation and salvation of those individuals. What is promised as to the final conversion of Israel has nothing to do with this question.
Neither can we adopt the attempt of Weiss to apply the right of God, expounded in chap. 9, solely to the competency belonging to God of fixing the conditions to which He chooses to attach the gift of His grace. The apostle’s view evidently goes further; the cases of Moses and Pharaoh, with the expressions to show grace and to harden, indicate not simple conditions on which the event may take place, but a real action on God’s part to produce it.
A multitude of expositors, Origen, Chrysostom, the Arminians, several moderns, such as Tholuck, etc., have endeavored to find a formula whereby to combine the action of man’s moral freedom (evidently assumed in Rom 9:30-33) with the divine predestination taught in the rest of the chapter. Without being able to say that they have entirely succeeded in showing the harmony between the two terms, we are convinced that it is only in this way that the true thought of the apostle can be explained; and placing ourselves at this viewpoint, we submit to the reader the following considerations, already partly indicated in the course of the exegesis:
1. And first of all, the problem discussed by the apostle is not the speculative question of the relation between God’s sovereign decree and man’s free responsibility. This question appears indeed in the background of the discussion, but it is not its theme. This is simply and solely the fact of the rejection of Israel, the elect people; a fact proved in particular by the preamble Rom 9:1-5, and the Rom 9:30-33, introduced as a conclusion from what precedes by the words: What shall we say then? We should not therefore seek here a theory of St. Paul, either regarding the divine decrees or human freedom; he will not touch this great question, except in so far as it enters into the solution of the problem proposed.
2. We must beware of confounding liberty and arbitrariness on the part of God, and aptitude and merit on the part of man. To begin with this second distinction, the free acceptance of any divine favor whatever, and of salvation in general, is an aptitude to receive and possess the gift of God, but does not at all constitute a merit conferring on man the right to claim it. We have already said: How can faith be a merit, that which in its essence is precisely the renunciation of all merit? This distinction once established, the other is easily explained. Face to face with human merit, God would no longer be free, and this is really all that Paul wishes to teach in our chapter. For his one concern is to destroy the false conclusion drawn by Israel from their special election, their law, their circumcision, their ceremonial works, their monotheism, their moral superiority. These were in their eyes so many bonds by which God was pledged to them beyond recall. God had no more the right to free Himself from the union once contracted with them, on any condition whatever. The apostle repels every obligation on God’s part, and from this point of view he now vindicates the fulness of divine liberty. But he does not dream of teaching thereby divine arbitrariness. He does not mean for a moment that without rhyme or reason God resolved to divorce Himself from His people, and to contract alliance with the Gentiles. It God breaks with Israel, it is because they have obstinately refused to follow Him in the way which he wished the development of His kingdom henceforth to take (see the demonstration in chap. 10). If He now welcomes the Gentiles, it is because they enter with eagerness and confidence on the way which is opened to them by His mercy. There is thus no caprice on God’s part in this double dispensation. God simply uses His liberty, but in accordance with the standard arising from His love, holiness, and wisdom. No anterior election can hinder Him either from showing grace to the man who was not embraced in it at the first, but whom he finds disposed to cast himself humbly on His favor; or to reject and harden the man to whom He was united, but who claims to set himself up proudly in opposition to the progress of His work. A free initiative on God’s part in all things, but without a shadow of arbitrarinesssuch is the apostle’s view. It is that of true monotheism.
3. As to the speculative question of the relation between God’s eternal plan and the freedom of human determinations, it seems to me probable that Paul resolved it, so far as he was himself concerned, by means of the fact affirmed by him, of divine foreknowledge. He himself puts us on this way, Rom 8:29-30, by making foreknowledge the basis of predestination. As a general, who is in full acquaintance with the plans of campaign adopted by the opposing general, would organize his own in keeping with this certain prevision, and would find means of turning all the marches and countermarches of his adversary to the success of his designs; so God, after fixing the supreme end, employs the free human actions, which He contemplates from the depths of His eternity, as factors to which He assigns a part, and which He makes so many means in the realization of His eternal design. Undoubtedly Paul did not think here of resolving the speculative question, for that did not enter into his task as an apostle; but his treatment furnishes us by the way with the necessary elements to convince us that if he had meant to do so, it would have been in this direction he would have guided our thoughts.
What are we to conclude from all this? That the apostle in this chapter, far from vindicating, as is ordinarily thought, the rights of divine election over against human freedom, vindicates, on the contrary, the rights of God’s freedom in regard to His own election relating to Israel. His decree does not bind Him, as an external law imposed on His will would. He remains sovereignly free to direct His mode of acting at every moment according to the moral conditions which he meets with in humanity, showing grace when he finds good, even to men who were not in His covenant, rejecting, when He finds good, even men who were embraced in the circle which formed the object of His election. St. Paul did not therefore think of contending in behalf of divine sovereignty against human freedom; he contended for God’s freedom in opposition to the chains which men sought to lay on Him in the name of His own election. We have here a treatise not for, but against unconditional election,
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
even as it is written [The passage about to be quoted is a compound of the Hebrew at Isa 8:14 and the LXX. at Isa 28:16 . The first reads thus, “But he shall be . . . for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel,” and the second, “Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation . . . he that believeth shall not be in haste.” The reader can see how the apostle, for brevity, has blended them; quoting only such part of each as suited his purpose], Behold, I lay in Zion [Jerusalem, the capital city of my people] a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: And he that believeth on him shall not be put to shame. [Why the LXX. substituted “not be put to shame,” for “not be in haste,” is not clear, though the meaning of the latter phrase is near kin to the former, conveying the idea of fleeing away in confusion. Shame, however, is a very appropriate word here, for it was the chief cause of Christ’s rejection by the Jews: they were ashamed of him (Mar 8:38; Luk 9:26; Rom 1:16; 2Ti 1:8). The apostle is justified by New Testament authority in regarding both these Scriptures as Messianic prophecies (1Pe 2:6-8; Mat 21:42; Act 4:11 . Comp. Psa 118:22; 1Co 3:11; Eph 2:20); but it adds greatly to the weight of his argument to know that the Jews also conceded them to be such. “Neither of these passages,” says Olshausen, “relates to the Messiah in its immediate connection, but they had been typically applied to him as early as the Chaldean and Rabbinical paraphrases, and Paul with propriety so applies them. The Old Testament is one great prophecy of Christ.” And Tholuck says: “Jarchi and Kimchi also testify that it (Isa 28:16) was explained of the Messias.” And our Lord was a stone of stumbling! As Moule exclaims: “Was ever prophecy more profoundly verified in event?” If he spake plainly, they were offended; and if he spake in parables, they were equally angered. If he healed, they took offense; and if he forbore healing, and refused to give a sign, they were likewise dissatisfied. If he came to the feast, they sought his life; and if he stayed away, they were busy searching for him. Nothing that he did pleased them, nothing that he forbore to do won him any favor. His whole ministry developed an ever-increasing distaste for his person, and animosity toward his claims. As a final word on this great chapter, let us note that God’s foreordination rejected the Jew by presenting a gospel which appealed to sinners, and was offensive to that worst class of sinners, the self-righteous. God sent his Son as Physician to the sick, and those who supposed themselves well, died of their maladies according to a reasonable, rational and equitable plan–but also a foreordained plan. This conclusion of the ninth chapter will be fully discussed in the tenth.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
33. As has been written: Behold I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and he that believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Shame is always the progeny of sin. People are ashamed to pray in public and in their own families and invite the erring to the Savior, looking them boldly in the face. What is the solution? Sin is at the bottom. Get rid of sin and your shame is all gone. Here we see that the Jews, having waited four thousand years for their own Christ, stumbled Over Him, plunging into hopeless ruin. Till Christ came the Jews were normally the true people of God. The ministry of Christ, living and dying, proved the fatal epoch in the apostasy of Israel. Before that epoch the Jewish church was adorned with brilliant examples of holiness. Since that day she exhibits not a solitary light, but goes deeper into the darkness of infidelity and atheism as the ages go by. In a similar manner, Romanism stumbled over Christ preached by Luther and his compeers. Before that day Saint Bernard, Abbey de Rance, Thomas a Kempis and many other exemplars of entire sanctification shone brilliantly in their ranks. But, oh, how dark their escutcheon today, unilluminated by a solitary confessor! In a similar manner the Episcopal Church stumbled Over Christ preached by Wesley and his heroic comrades, plunging into darkness and sinking deeper into worldliness. Oh, what a memorable epoch in the history of the Protestant churches the present Holiness movement is marking! We live in an age of thrilling prophetical fulfillments, when men will not endure sound doctrine. God has raised up an army of Holiness people, girdling the globe with the evangelism of Christ, the great Protestant churches in all lands stumbling over Him, as revealed by the Holy Ghost in His Omnipotent, sanctifying power.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Verse 33
As it is written; in Isaiah 8:14,28:16.