St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans: A Practical Exposition. Vol. II. Gore Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ Whereas Edom saith, We are beaten down, but we will return,' &c. This passage (1) plainly refers to Esau as meaning Edom, the people; (2) describes not the original lot of Esau, which was secondary indeed, but highly blessed (Gen. xxvii. 39, 40); but the ultimate lot of Esau when he had misused his original endowment in violence and cruelty.

31

Isa. xxix. 16, xlv. 9, lxiv. 8; Jer. xviii. 6; Ecclus. xxxiii. 13.

32

xv. 7.

33

1 Cor. xii. 22-5; 2 Tim. ii. 20.

34

Jer. xviii. 4. The passage continues with a strong assertion of God's freedom to govern the destinies of nations on moral principles.

35

When Moses asked to see God's glory (Exod. xxxiii. 18), what was revealed to him was His goodness and free mercy, and what St. Paul here means by God's glory is His mercy especially.

36

In the original the words run, 'For this cause have I made thee to stand,' i.e. probably, 'I have preserved thy life under the plague of boils, and other plagues, in order to make thee an example of a more conspicuous judgement.' But St. Paul, departing from the Greek Bible, uses a word 'raised thee up,' which in Pharaoh's case, or in that of Cyrus, means to bring upon the stage of history. Isa. xli. 2; cf. Jer. 1. [xxvii in the Greek] 41; Hab. i. 6.

37

See Matt. xiii. 14, 15; Mark iv. 12; John xii. 40.

38

Cf. vol. i. p. 75.

39

On the meaning of divine foreknowledge in St. Paul see vol. i. p. 317.

40

See Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 5, 9; xviii. 1, 3; Bell. Jud. ii. 8, 14. Cf. Schürer, Jewish People (English trans.), Div. ii. vol. ii. pp.14 ff.; James and Ryle, Ps. of Solomon, p. 96. The Essenes, Josephus says, believed in fate, and not in free-will; the Sadducees in free-will and not in fate; but the Pharisees in both. No doubt Josephus is importing Greek philosophical views into his account of Jewish parties, but substantially his account is probably true.

41

e. g. Isa. xix. 24; Ezek. xvi. 55. (The exaltation into the fellowship of the chosen people of Egypt, Assyria, Sodom, and Samaria.)

42

Isa. vi. 13.

43

I have endeavoured sometimes in this analysis to expand what St. Paul means by 'pursuing righteousness,' by 'works' and by 'faith,' in accordance with the meaning already assigned to these words; see vol. i. pp. 7-24.

44

Isa. viii. 14; xxviii. 16. Cf. Matt. xi. 6.

45

See above, vol. i. p. 17.

46

Levit. xviii. 5.

47

Deut. xxx. 11-14. I have italicized the words substantially reproduced by St. Paul, but I have quoted the whole passage because its whole meaning is in his mind.

48

Isa. xxviii. 16.

49

Joel ii. 32.

50

Isa. lii. 7.

51

Isa. liii. 1.

52

Ps. xix. 4.

53

Deut. xxxii. 21.

54

Isa. lxv. 1, 2.

55

See vol. i. pp. 7 ff., 165 f., 250 ff.

56

Godet in loc.

57

Cf. 1 Cor. xii. 3. The lordship of Jesus, we see in this passage, means that He can have applied to Him the sayings of the Old Testament about the Lord Jehovah; and can be 'called upon' as such in prayer (Joel ii. 32).

58

Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 1-3.

59

Clem, ad Cor. 42, 44.

60

See S. and H. in loc.

61

Three times – 1 Sam. xii. 22, Ps. xciv. 14, xcv. 3 (in the Greek) – the promise occurs 'The Lord will not cast away His people.'

62

The vocation and election which made Israel the chosen people were absolutely of God. What distinguished the faithful remnant from the bulk of the nation was simply that they had not altogether failed in faith, so that the unchanging election was not in their cases practically suspended, but God 'reserved them for Himself.'

63

St. Paul refers chiefly to Isa. xxix. 10 – the description of a besotted people whose prophets are eyes that cannot see, and their seers ears that cannot hear; so that the word of God has become as a sealed book; cf. also Isa. vi. 9. But there is a similar passage in Deut. xxix. 4, which partly moulds his language, and supplies the words 'unto this day.'

64

Rather, as margin, in Elijah, i.e. the passage of Scripture about Elijah.

65

This – to recognize or mark out beforehand – is the meaning of divine 'foreknowing' in St. Paul. See vol. i. pp. 317 f.

66

Both in this passage and in Acts i. 20.

67

I follow, by preference, the paragraphs of the R.V., unless there is very strong reason to the contrary.

68

Cf. 2 Cor. v. 19, 'God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.'

69

Num. xv. 20, 21.

70

'The Lord called thy name A green olive tree.' Jer. xi. 16; Hos. xiv. 6.