Romans 10

Chap. X. Ver. 1—21. Paul farther distinguishes between the law and the gospel, and shows that the call of the Gentiles had been foretold.—It has been said that the doctrine of predestination has a tendency to harden the heart against feelings of tenderness for our fellow sinners; and to render persons indifferent to their salvation, under the suspicion of their not being elected. But with God’s secret will we have really no concern: “the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever,” and our only concern with them is, to believe and to obey them: “to do all the words” of God’s blessed book. (See (Deuteronomy 29:29).) Among those precepts, some of the first and most important are, to “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ ourselves, and to recommend faith in him and obedience to his will, so far as our means extend, to all our fellow sinners.

And without attempting any invidious comparison, it cannot be denied that many predestinarians rank among the most zealous and active propagators of the gospel. St. Paul himself, who had written more in the support of this truth than all the other writers of the New Testament, was certainly not exceeded by any of them in the zeal with which he sought the conversion of both Jews and Gentiles; and “his heart’s desire and prayer to God” for both was, “that they might be saved.” But it is to the former class that the apostle chiefly addresses himself in this and the following chapters, bearing them record “that they had a zeal for God,” that is, for their religion; but it was “not according to knowledge.”

They were ignorant even of the great and important doctrine of justification, and being ignorant of God’s righteousness, that is, the righteousness which he had provided in his Son, they went about seeking to establish their own righteousness; whereas he assures them that “Christ is the end of the law;” as in him was exhibited the perfection of the moral law, and the fulfilment of the ceremonial. In what follows, the apostle refers to the farewell discourse of Moses to the Israelites, in which he speaks of the laws which he had delivered, as not so high that they must be again fetched from heaven, as at Sinai; nor so foreign and obscure that the deep must be fathomed for them; but as “broken ear,” that is, rendered easy—and familiar to them: so God had “brought near his righteousness for their salvation.”

((Isaiah 46:13).) After exhibiting it in the types and figures of the law at a distance, he had now, in the gospel, applied it home to their hearts and consciences, saying, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Knowledge is, however, necessary, previous to faith; it is necessary, therefore, that the gospel should be preached to both Jews and Gentiles; and those who feel their need of it, and its suitableness to their necessities, will hail it with a hearty welcome, and say, with the prophet Isaiah, (Chap. lii. 7,) “How beautiful are the feet of them that publish it!” But this is not lit. 1, and exposition.) From the preceding premises the apostle draws this general inference, that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God;”

that word, that is, the gospel, must therefore be universally promulgated, like the sunbeams which shine from east to west and from one extremity of the world to the other: and has not this been accomplished? Even at the time when the apostle wrote, he and his colleagues had been employed nearly thirty years in preaching; and churches had been founded not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but at Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and in most parts of the Roman empire; so that, in his Epistle to the Colossians, not long after this, he tells them, as he does the Romans here, that it had spread into all the world, ((Colossians 1:6)) meaning (of course) so far as it was then known. Nor were the Jews themselves unapprized of this, since it was foretold by Moses and the prophets in several passages here referred to; though it must be confessed that they showed the greatest obstinacy in refusing to believe or to understand it, even such of them as had been converted to Chris-

Notes on the verses

Chap. X. Ver. 2. For I bear, &c.—By this fine apology for the Jews, the Apostle prepares them for the harsher truths which he was about to deliver. Ver. 3. God’s righteousness.—(“God’s method of justification,” says Abp. Newcome: God’s method of saving sinners.)—Bagster. Ver. 4. End of the law.—(The object, scope, or final cause; the end proposed and intended. In this sense E’sner observes that Telos is used by Arrian.)—Bagster. Doddridge, “pera and design.” Beza thinks Christ is so called, because by his death he hath procured that justification for sinners through faith, which the law proposed to bestow through works. Macknight, “The end or purpose for which the law was given, namely, (by its types, &c.,) to lead the Jews to believe in Christ.”

Ver. 6. Say not in thy heart.—(The Apostle here takes the general sentiment, and expresses it in his own language; beautifully accommodating what Moses says of the law to his present purpose.)—Bagster. Ver. 7. Into the deep—(Greek, adyes.) Campbell refers it to hades, the world of spirits. Bishop Lowth thinks that Moses here alludes to a custom of the Egyptians, who buried their dead on the other side of a lake, in what they called “the isles of the blessed.” Ver. 8. The word is nigh thee.—“Things obscure, or difficult to be obtained (says Mr. Cox) were represented by the Jews as being far off; whereas such as were plain, or easily attainable, were said to be nigh.” Ver. 9. The Lord Papen perce ee a Lord.”

Ver. 11. Shall not be ashamed.—See (Romans 9:33). Ver. 12. Lord over all.—Doddridge, “Lord of all.” So the Greek. Comxr. 16. Our report.—Our preaching. — 4 Pave “more t.—O aching. Ver. 15. Their sound.—(Similar to this elegant accommodation of enemy words, is the application of them in a passage of Zohar, Genes. BP excel words are the corollary of Eat and measure out both the things above and the things beneath.”)—Bagster. Ver. 20, Esaias is very bold—i.e., open and plain in his predictions. Compare (2 Corinthians 3:12).