Romans 9

CHAPTER IX

PART III

The Righteousness of God, Being Obtained by Faith Alone, Explains what Occurs in the case of Israel and the case of the Gentiles. Chapters 9–11

Coming as Promise and as Mercy, the Gentiles Attained by Faith, Israel, Being without Faith, Failed. Chapter 9

Promise

This section of Romans has been regarded as an appendix to the doctrinal discussion that precedes, and again it has been considered the main portion of the epistle to which all of the preceding is preliminary. Another view wonders why Paul inserted these chapters. These three chapters constitute an integral and a natural part of the great theme, God’s Righteousness by Faith Alone. They do not present “The Unbelief of the Jewish People,” or, “The Problem of Jewish Unbelief.” There is far more in them; for one thing, also the faith of the Gentiles. Nor are these two placed side by side in a sort of contrast. Paul goes far deeper.

Because of its very nature and its one means of bestowal God’s saving righteousness is so evidently received by faith alone that those and those alone who believe receive and have it, and all who refuse to believe fail of righteousness. This explains what we see in the case of Israel and at the same time in the Gentile world. Because the story of God’s righteousness is the story of Faith, these chapters are in place here, for the part that faith plays is ever decisive. In Paul’s presentation faith is described as to its real essence: reception, mere reception of God’s justifying righteousness. The Promise, the Mercy, the Word, through which these come, aim to produce faith, the faith by which they and what they bring are received. Nothing, just nothing is demanded of us, it is all a pure bestowal.

What else could it be if we are, indeed, to be saved? How else could God’s righteousness become our possession? What other means could God have devised?

No wonder Paul breaks forth in a pæan of praise at the end of this section (11:33–36). Oh, the blessedness and the gloriousness of God’s counsel, devising this bestowal by faith alone!

Chapter 9 begins with the Promise and the Mercy as related to Faith and its bearing on Israel and on the Gentiles. Here we see the sad, inexcusable failure of Israel, which, as a nation, refused to receive the promise and the mercy in the only way in which they can be received, by faith; and we see how Gentiles yielded to faith. In Paul’s day the relation of the Jews and of the Gentiles to God’s righteousness constituted a subject of supreme interest that was equally vital to both Jewish and Gentile Christians. Paul’s elucidation is complete.

History has indeed moved on, the influx of Jews is now small, but the miracle of the preservation of the Jews as an unabsorbed body that is scattered over all the world, amid all other people, nations, and races, still continues and thus lends a continuous interest in what Paul has to say regarding their status as being due to their obdurate unbelief. The Jewish question will ever be alive in the Gentile world.

Augustine found his predestinarianism in chapter 9. Calvin also stressed this doctrine and led many to follow him and darkened the understanding of the vital statements of this chapter for many others. An adequate interpretation of Romans necessarily examines also the Calvinistic and the Calvinizing exegesis that is so contrary to God’s righteousness by faith alone.

Romans 9:1

1 Truth I state in Christ, I lie not, my conscience witnessing with me in connection with the Holy Spirit, that sorrow for me is great, and ceaseless (is) pain for my heart. Yea, I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ in place of my brethren, my kinsmen according to flesh: they who are Israelites, whose the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the legislation, and the cultus, and the promises, whose the fathers, and from whom Christ as according to flesh, he who is over all, God blessed unto the eons—amen!

The asyndeton indicates far more than a new section. It is unlikely that a night intervened before the dictation of this letter was continued. Hard upon the exalted climax of 8:31–39 which rises to triumphant assurance in v. 38, 39 comes this sad, tragic subject of Paul’s fellow nationals, and as he enters upon it, his heart is wrung anew with the pain that has wrenched it during all these years. Emotion produced this asyndeton. But why so strong an assurance that Paul is speaking the truth when he tells about his sorrow and his pain? Because this is a matter of Paul’s inner personal life with which the Romans had had no contact. Again, because, when one forsakes a connection he usually turns severely against it, and Paul wants to exclude such an impression when he now tells the Romans, as he is compelled to do, that the Jews as a nation are rejected by God.

The positive: “Truth I state in Christ,” is emphasized by the negative: “I lie not,” which, moreover, indicates what Paul would be doing if his statement were not strictly true. The genitive absolute: “my conscience witnessing with me in the Holy Spirit,” modifies both statements. Paul’s own statements are one witness, Paul’s conscience is another. The idea is that two witnesses are sufficient to settle any point. Conscience is another voice, one that cannot be bribed, one that speaks independently and unhesitatingly contradicts us if we are wrong or false. When the witness of Paul’s conscience is stated to his readers by Paul himself, this is done because its witness could not be stated otherwise; moreover, such a statement could not be falsified without moral suicide.

But note that Paul says he is speaking “in Christ” (see 6:11), and his conscience is witnessing “in the Holy Spirit.” Both phrases are in the emphatic position, one modifying the verb, the other the participle, and ἐν in both = “in connection with.” Conscious of speaking in connection with Christ, even Paul’s conscience testifying in connection with the Holy Spirit, these actions so connected with the Savior and with the Spirit are in every way sincere and genuine.

As far as an appeal to conscience alone is concerned, this amounts to little, for conscience often errs. Therefore Paul connects his conscience with the Spirit who enlightens and controls it. So at Worms Luther did not appeal merely to his conscience, which his opponents could also do; he appealed to his conscience as bound by the Word of God, which is the Spirit’s voice, and added that, if he could be shown from the Word that he was wrong, his conscience would at once yield accordingly.

Romans 9:2

2 In Paul’s case it was not a matter of doctrine but of his personal sorrow and pain, the one being great, the other constant. The Greek idiom: “is to me, to my heart” = I have, my heart has (not, “in my heart,” our versions). The adjectives are placed chiastically: sorrow great, ceaseless pain. The ceaselessness is added to the greatness. In this respect Paul was like Jesus who wept over Jerusalem, and whose tears were not the product of the moment but of a constant grief. The Romans are to know with the greatest certainty that all that Paul says in these chapters about the unbelief of the Jews is surcharged with pain for him.

Romans 9:3

3 Γάρ does not prove this grief and pain, nor does it explain. This is the confirmatory γάρ, “yea,” and states to what climax Paul’s personal love for the Jews would drive him, namely, if such a thing were possible, he would buy the salvation of his nation at the price of his own salvation. Paul would repeat what Moses did in Exod. 32:32. Moses offered such a prayer, Paul did not offer it because he knew that it involved a divine impossibility. But Paul has more in mind than Moses had. The latter’s love for his people was so great that he did not want to be saved without them; Paul’s love wanted to save them even at the cost of losing his own soul.

The usual explanation for the imperfect ηὐχόμην is that it is the apodosis of a present condition of unreality, ἄν being dropped to make it stronger. But R. 886 lists it under the potential imperfect; B.-D. 359, 2 under the imperfect of wishes. In the LXX and in the New Testament ἀνάθεμα = something devoted to God by consigning it to destruction; it is the Hebrew cherem, something accursed; it is distinct from ἀνάθημα, devoted to God without being consigned to destruction. Here “anathema from Christ” = accursed with the loss of salvation because of separation from Christ. True, ὑπέρ = “in behalf of,” but here we have another instance in which the act would amount to nothing unless it were “in place of,” in substitution for; see 5:6, 8, and 8:32.

“My brethren,” with its apposition, “my kinsmen according to flesh,” brings out the personal bond existing between Paul and the Jews, which is not merely national but a blood relationship. Paul does not name those for whom his heart breaks until this point, thus by means of a little suspense intensifying this naming and at the same time enabling him at once to add in full the high standing to which God in his grace had advanced Paul’s people. So much God had thought of them, such high prerogatives he had bestowed upon them. Therefore Paul still thinks of them with such devotion and, alas, with such grief.

Oh, that Paul could call them his brethren and kinsmen also κατὰπνεῦμα! His heart would fairly burst for joy. His strong wish has been called “a crazy prayer”; but the tense states that he never uttered this wish. Those who assail the ethics of Paul reveal their inability to appreciate this high nobility of Paul’s. In order to shield Paul others reduce his meaning in one way or in another. One way is to make the accursing temporary, but this is arbitrary. The infinitive εἶναι may be construed with the nominative, so we here have αὐτὸςἐγώ.

Romans 9:4

4 Οἵτινες often has causal force. Here it states the reason that Paul could wish to sacrifice himself for his kinsmen. “They who are Israelites” states the basic and the comprehensive standing of Paul’s people in God’s sight as distinct from the ἔθνη or Gentiles. The three relatives: “whose—whose—and from whom” modify “Israelites” and unfold all that this great designation involves. As Israelites they had all these prerogatives. Hebrews names them with reference to their language; Jews with reference to their nationality (being derived from Juda, after the Babylonian captivity including also Benjamin, the other ten tribes having disappeared); but Israelites goes back to Jacob whose name God changed to “Israel” (“Contender with God”) in honor of his prevailing faith which would not let God go until God had blessed him. “Israelites” was the theocratic covenant name; it often occurs in the form “Israel,” a collective term.

Israelites means that they had “the adoption” or “the sonship.” The nouns are articulated, each of these possessions is marked as being well known. The national sonship is referred to. Israel was “my son” when he was called out of Egypt, Hos. 11:1; “my son, my firstborn,” Exod. 4:22, 23; “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people,” Exod. 19:5. Paul is speaking of the nation, his brethren “according to flesh.”

Connected with the sonship bestowed on Israel was “the glory,” the kebod Yahweh, Jehovah in the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night; plus “the glory of the Lord” that rested in a cloud on the Tabernacle and upon the mercy seat, called the Shekinah by the Jews, Exod. 40:34; Lev. 16:2; and other passages.

“The covenants” is plural, not as referring to the old and the new, but to the progressive repetitions to the patriarchs and finally to Moses on Sinai. Hence next in order is “the legislation,” the giving of the law on Sinai. Then “the cultus,” the regulation of Israel’s worship by God himself, the worship of the true God in the true way. Finally in this first group, “the promises,” those pertaining to the Messiah and to the new covenant, these promises glorifying the preceding items and filling them with saving content. It is placed last in this group for this reason. This term is vital here, we shall hear more about “the promise,” for its correlative is faith, and the Israelites refused to come to faith.

Romans 9:5

5 “Whose” again refers to “Israelites,” and “the fathers,” i.e., in the strict sense, are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, from whom the Israelites descended, and not venerable men who in later eras sprang from the Israelites. Compare, for instance, Exod. 3:13, 15; 4:5; in the New Testament, Acts 3:13; 7:32. Those later fathers (Acts 7:38, etc.; 44, etc.; 51, etc.) were not fathers of whom one might be proud.

But the crowning glory is the last: “from whom the Christ as according to flesh,” etc. The relative now used is ἐξὧν. It is most exact in showing that Christ was not produced by the Israelites but was only derived from them, and that as according to flesh, i.e., according to his human nature. Τό before the phrase κατὰσάρκα converts it into an adverbial accusative (R. 486).

The minutest scrutiny has been bestowed on the following words in order to determine whether in whole or in part they are predicated of Christ or constitute a doxology of God. Subordinationists such as Meyer offer objections to a predication concerning Christ and disregard all that speaks so clearly to the contrary. Erasmus is regarded as being the first who, in his Commentary, referred the words directly to the Father although in his later paraphrase he referred them to Christ. Strange to say, even Socinus understood that Paul was referring to Christ. Since Erasmus, as Sanday and Headlam in their elaborate discussion state it, interpreters vary largely for dogmatical reasons. The margin of the R. V. indicates how some, by means of punctuation, secure a doxology to the Father.

Let us at once say that the deity of Christ is not in the slightest degree affected by the interpretation of this passage. One passage more or less in support of his deity makes no difference. To those who deny or who reduce the deity of Christ the interpretation of this passage is an entirely different matter. One passage that is contrary to their thesis is enough to destroy it root and branch. The two sides are not balanced or on a par as far as dogmatics are concerned so that the orthodox find their orthodoxy in this passage, and the unorthodox their unorthodoxy. In the case of the latter very much is at stake; in the case of the former nothing whatever is at stake. If this is a doxology to the Father, we are happy to accept it; but if this proves to be a description of Christ’s deity, then every denial of that deity is once more branded as false.

ὉΧριστός precedes, and ὁὤνκτλ., follows hard upon it. We, therefore, have the same construction that is found in John 3:13, a simple apposition (regarding the passage in John see the exposition of the author). These passages are alike even in this respect that the substantivized participle has a predicative phrase, which answers the assertion that ὁὤν is never followed by a phrase. Some think that ὁὤνκτλ. = ὅςἐστικτλ., but an apposition is not the same as a relative clause. “He who is over all,” whether “all” is masculine or neuter, means that Christ is over all, i.e., the supreme Lord. This apposition is complete in itself. If no more were added, this apposition makes Christ God, for we have yet to hear of one who is “over all” and is not God.

There is nothing to indicate that a period should be placed at this point. Θεός without the article is plainly a second predicate of ὁὤν, to which the verbal adjective εὐλογητόςκτλ. is added attributively: “he who is … God blessed unto the eons.” This second predicate follows in natural course: as the One over all he is certainly God, blessed forever. The whole statement is an apposition and thus not a doxology. “Amen,” the transliterated Hebrew word for “truth,” is added exactly as it was in 1:25, where it also follows the same words “blessed unto the eons.” See the exposition of these words in 1:25.

When Paul says that Christ was derived from Israel “as far as his flesh is concerned,” the natural expectation is that something should follow regarding the true being of Christ. It does follow in the apposition which completes the thought. Ὁὤν describes Christ in his being, the very thing needed here. Paul is stating the highest prerogatives of the Israelites as a nation. The highest of all is that God had his Son come from Israel according to his human nature. He says no more and no less than he has said already in 1:3, 4. To say that it is climax enough to call Jesus the “Christ,” disregards the limiting phrase “as regards the flesh”; it is “Christ as regards the flesh” that needs and that receives the appositional complement. The Christ is very God himself.

Those who hold that this is a doxology to the Father have been unable to indicate a reason for such a doxology at this point. What makes the grief of Paul so poignant is the fact that God should have favored Israel so highly. To say the least, if Paul were to insert a doxology to God at this point, it would be out of place, the incongruity would be evident. The best that has been offered is to let Paul break forth in a doxology because God favored Israel so highly. But then this doxology does not fit; for how does God’s being over all harmonize with his giving spiritual blessings to Israel? His being over all as Ruler Supreme would fit only his provident care of Israel.

The plea that this would be the only doxology to Christ is pointless, for this is an apposition, as we have shown, and not a doxology. All doxologies to God begin with εὐλογητός (Eph. 1:3 is a sample) except where γένοιτοεἴη, or ἔστω precede (the LXX mistranslates Ps. 68:19). The very wording precludes a doxology of any kind at this place.

The point is made that Christ is never called simply “God,” or at least is never so called by Paul. But Paul and John 1:1, and 20:28 are not in opposition. The observation is correct that to this day we seldom call Christ simply “God” unless, like John and like Paul in the present instance, we have some special reason for using the unmodified predicate “God”; ordinarily “God’s Son” is sufficient; this is also true, let us add, with regard to the Spirit (Acts 5:4). We usually mark Christ as the second person of the Trinity. This statement may, however, become quite sinister, for it assigns a secondary position to the Son, it makes Paul a subordinationist, Christ is regarded as “God” only in an inferior sense. But the idea of a gradation in God is subversive of all that the Scriptures reveal regarding God as being one in essence, that one essence being found equally in each of the three persons.

The exegesis is sound: Christ, an Israelite according to the flesh, is Lord of all, God blessed forever, to which we, like Paul, add an emphatic “amen.”

Romans 9:6

6 We find no hiding of the subject, either “with artifice” (Calvin) or “with tenderness and caution”; nor is the subject, “the rejection of the Jews.” Paul’s great grief would make him wish to sacrifice his salvation for that of the Israelites whom God had favored so highly. The subject is plainly: Israel’s defection. So far removed was God from rejecting Israel that he showered it with all these prerogatives. Yet, to the breaking of Paul’s heart, Israel is lost. He now explains the reason, and this is not reprobation. Another view that is untenable is the thought that Paul is debating with Jews, Judaizers, or anybody else and answering objections that would be fatal to his doctrine. He is writing to Christians, former Jews and former Gentiles, and is showing them how from the very start God operated with promise (to which he then adds mercy and the gospel word in 9:14, etc., and in chapter 10) and aimed solely at faith, faith which the Jews refuse, which so many Gentiles possess, by which alone Paul’s Christian readers are saved.

First, then, the vital point that from the very beginning all was Promise (v. 6–13), pure promise.

Now it is not this way that the Word of God has fallen by the way. For not all (derived) from Israel, (not all) these are Israel; nor (is it this way) that they (i.e., all those derived from Israel) are Abraham’s seed. All are children, but: In connection with Isaac shall seed be called for thee! This means, not the children of the flesh, (not) these (are) the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed.

Note that the explanation culminates in “the children of the promise,” that this promise is quoted, and that we have already had “the promises” as the climax of the first group of Israel’s prerogatives in v. 4. In v. 9 Paul continues: “This word is (one) of promise,” etc.

With οὐχοἷονὅτι supply ἐστίν; it is not a mixture of οὐχοἶον and οὐχὅτι, which is still offered by B.-D. 304. The sense is not: “With this I do not mean to say that,” etc. Paul simply states the fact that “it is not this way,” οἶον; it is not a case of this kind, namely “that the Word of God has fallen by the way,” ἐκπέπτωκεν, the perfect with its present connotation. When one looks at the many unbelieving Israelites, he would be sadly mistaken to think that God’s Word has dropped out and now is ineffective and unfulfilled. Paul uses the wide term “the Word of God,” for the whole of it is involved in what happened to the Israelites. The supposition that Paul is defending his doctrine against some hostile objector is beside the mark.

He is clearing up what may cause a difficulty for earnest Christians when they look at the position assigned to Israel in God’s Word and yet see that Israel is lost. They may think that the Word of God has dropped away, that the outcome with regard to Israel proves it to be unreliable, non-dependable.

Such would be mistaken regarding Israel and regarding the Word: regarding Israel because it does not include all the physical descendants of Abraham; regarding the Word because this is promise and itself excludes unbelief and unbelievers. Not the Word has fallen by the way, “it liveth and abideth forever” (1 Pet. 1:23); but these Israelites, despite the Word and the promises which they had, have fallen by the way.

So Paul at once adds regarding Israel: “For not all those from Israel, (not all) these are Israel.” The true Israel is not composed of all the Israelites, of all those who originate from (ἐκ to indicate origin) Israel. This at once clears up the one side of superficial or confused thinking. Οὖτοι resumes the subject with emphasis. “Israel” is evidently used in two senses: first as a reference to the physical Israel from which all Jews originate, next as a reference to the spiritual Israel to which all Jews by no means belong. This double significance is of importance because of its bearing on 11:25, 26 where we again meet it.

Romans 9:7

7 The usual rendering is that of our versions: “neither because they are Abraham’s seed are they all children.” The trouble with this translation is that it makes “seed” mean physical seed, and “children” spiritual children; whereas in the quotation which at once follows “seed” is spiritual seed, and in the explanation (v. 8) “children” is differentiated: “the children of the flesh,” “the children of God,” “the children of the promise.” And οὐδʼ ὅτι is parallel to its equivalent οὐχοἶονὅτι. We thus accept as the correct rendering: “nor (is it this way) that they are Abraham’s seed,” i.e., all those derived from Israel. Not all of them are “Israel” or “seed of Abraham” in the true or spiritual sense.

Now there follows a new sentence: “All (are) children, but” when it comes to seed, Gen. 21:12 stands, which Paul does not quote formally but simply appropriates and incorporates: “In Isaac shall seed be called for thee.” Paul’s readers know that this is a word of Scripture. As “Israel” is used in a double sense, so “seed” might also be so used. Here, however, the quotation regarding “seed” establishes Paul’s own statement about “seed,” and rules out all play on the word so as to use it in a double sense. The quotation is regarding “seed” in order to show that spiritual “seed” is Paul’s meaning; if “children” were spiritual children, the quotation would have to contain this word instead of the word “seed” in order to show that it is intended to be understood spiritually.

An old difficulty also disappears, namely as to whether Isaac in his own person is the “seed” which God had in mind in Gen. 21:12, since physically all Jews are “Abraham’s seed,” and, according to the rendering of our versions, Paul himself has just said so. If “seed” in both instances is taken in the spiritual sense, all difficulty regarding this point disappears. The idea that Isaac in his own person shall thus be called “seed for thee” is too abstruse to be introduced here.

“Shall be called” means “shall be” and in addition, “shall be acknowledged” by God really to be seed for thee. “In Isaac” = in spiritual union or connection with Isaac. All this is simple when we remember a few things. Abraham is to have seed in connection with Isaac. How so? Because God would establish the covenant made with Abraham also with Isaac and with his spiritual seed after him, Gen. 17:19. This seed was to be as numerous as the stars in heaven, Gen. 15:5. These promises speak of all coming believers as being “seed for Abraham.” Many of this seed will be Abraham’s physical descendants but not for this reason “seed for him”; and many more will not be physical descendants of Abraham. see 4:11, 12 on the double fatherhood of Abraham.

This makes “in Isaac” fully clear. He was to be the next representative bearer of the covenant after Abraham even as Jacob was to be the third. In connection with these three, and then finally in connection with the twelve patriarchs, sons of Jacob, the covenant would be open to others who, entering it by faith, would be acknowledged by God as “seed for Abraham.” God so arranged the covenant line. He did not arrange it to run through Ishmael nor through Esau. When we come to the twelve patriarchs, strictly speaking, the line ran through Juda and then on and on until we reach David and eventually Jesus, the Seed. With him the old covenant and its line of bearers ends because it has attained its goal.

This is a line of individuals but not in the sense that these individuals alone were in the covenant. The covenant was always open to others, to all who entered it by faith. All of Abraham’s great household was to enter it, which explains Gen. 17:9–14. This was also true with regard to the twelve patriarchs and their households. Note well that this also included strangers who were not of Abraham’s blood. Neither Ishmael nor Esau were excluded from the covenant as is sometimes supposed. They were excluded as little as were the eleven brothers of Juda. And this continues in ever-widening circles.

But all these were to be acknowledged as in Abraham and so “in Isaac,” and only so. We may say that the covenant was anchored in these representatives. The many covenants (v. 4) which were later also made with far greater numbers were only repetitions of the original one which was made with the three great patriarchs, the great covenant name of God ever being “the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob,” Exod. 3:6, 16; Matt. 22:32, sometimes, “the God of Israel.” Here the idea appears that “in Isaac” excluded Ishmael and also Esau from the covenant. But they were only not to be the representative bearers of the covenant, but “in Isaac” the covenant was also for them and was also theirs.

This “in Isaac,” etc., cannot be regarded as a decree that was issued by the sovereignty of God and excluded Ishmael, Esau, etc., from the covenant and from salvation. The opposite was the fact: a blessed promise of the free grace of God that opened wide the door of the covenant of grace; but entrance was for them, as it was for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob themselves, covenant bearers though they were, by faith alone.

All allegory also receives its answer here. “In Isaac” says nothing about the miraculous birth of Isaac to which, as to a kind of type, the spiritual birth of those belonging to the “seed for Abraham” corresponds. “In Isaac” was spoken long after Isaac’s birth. As regards Ishmael, God had signal blessings also for him, Gen. 17:20; 21:13 although he was not to be the personal bearer of the covenant. A decree of reprobation did not exclude him from the covenant itself; God does not bless reprobates thus.

Romans 9:8

8 With τοῦτʼ ἔστιν, “this means,” Paul himself explains his quotation from Genesis plus its preamble “all are children.” If all are children indeed, and yet if seed for Abraham is called only “in Isaac,” then it is as clear as day: “not the children of the flesh, not these are the children of God.” Mere physical descent makes no one a child of God. It is exactly what Jesus told the Jews when they boasted of being Abraham’s children, John 8:39, etc.

“On the contrary (ἀλλά), the children of the promise are reckoned (by God) as seed” (the predicative accusative with εἰς, R. 481). Spiritual seed for Abraham as God reckons such seed consists of “the children of the promise.” “Of the promise” is the counterpart of and the opposite to “of the flesh.” Both are genitives of origin. But this promise as the source and origin of these children who are “the children of God” is sometimes misunderstood. It is made the anti-type of the promise which told Abraham that he would have Isaac as a son from Sarah. It is thought that Paul is repeating Gal. 4:28, 29 although there is no “in Isaac” in Galatians but a different phrase with a different meaning, namely, κατὰἸσαάκ, “according, after the manner of, Isaac.” This promise that makes us children is not a promise which assured Abraham that we should be children of his; it is the covenant promise, the gospel or Christ promise, which brings forth children of God by faith and by faith alone. We are children of the promise when this promise leads us to believe what it promises.

We do not understand how absolute predestination can be inserted into a sweet word like “the promise”; Isaac born by promise—Ishmael excluded from the promise; we born by a promise—all others excluded; sovereign grace elects whom it pleases, gives them its promise—the rest are simply rejected, no promise was intended for them! “The PROMISE” and its parallel in v. 4: “The PROMISES” rise up in protest against such a view. John 3:16 gives the summary contents of “the Promise.” Every promise is to be believed so that what it extends may be actually accepted; and that is true in the highest degree with regard to this Promise. It reaches out to all men in order to kindle faith in all of them. To exclude any man from the very Promise itself, from the gospel and from Christ, by a decree of God is contrary to the Scripture.

In Gal. 4:26–29, and 5:28, Paul includes the Gentile believers when he speaks of children and seed in connection with the promise. He does not do so in the present connection. Here he is speaking only of Abraham’s physical descendants and hence says: “All are children.” All of them are not seed for Abraham, namely not those who reject the promise. God is able to regard only those of Abraham’s descendants as seed who by faith receive the promise in the covenant made with Abraham and with Isaac. The fact that everything depends on faith is stated presently (v. 30–33); so also that the promise and faith in it extend far beyond the Jews, namely to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews (v. 24–33). Paul omits nothing; he has everything in its right place.

When God began the covenant he began with Abraham, Isaac, etc.; the Gentiles came in in due time, so Paul does not at once speak of them. The first thing that his readers ought to know is the fact that the very patriarchs came in only by means of the covenant promise and not in any other way. The promise was God’s objective means; so, we shall see, was the mercy, so also the Word. The objective means already imply their correlative subjective means which is faith; but this subjective means is not at once added, it is considered in its proper place.

Romans 9:9

9 Paul goes a step farther with regard to the promise. The very next Greek word is “of promise.” It is the key word to this paragraph. He has quoted one promise, now he quotes two more. From Abraham he advances to Isaac and then to Jacob.

For of promise (is) this statement: According to this season I will come, and there shall be for Sarah a son. And not only she but also Rebecca, being pregnant from one, Isaac, our father. For they not yet having been born, not having done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose according to election may remain: not as a result of works but as a result of him who calls it was said to her, The older shall serve the younger, even as it has been written, Jacob I treated with an act of love but Esau with an act of hate.

What makes Paul’s grief so poignant are the high prerogatives that had been bestowed on Israel. Paul lists them. They consisted of promises and of what was connected with these promises, their crown being the promised Christ. Now the Word containing this entire blessed volume of promise did not fall by the way. The difficulty did not lie on God’s side, it did not lie with his Word and his promise. Christ came as had been promised.

The whole difficulty lay with the Israelites who would not allow themselves to be made “the children of the promise.” They banked on their physical descent and not on the covenant promise made to Abraham that in connection with Isaac, i.e., with the covenant represented in Isaac as the successor to Abraham, seed should be called for Abraham by God. This was what made Paul’s grief so great for these Israelites who were so faithless to the promise.

Paul now elucidates what “promise” in the full sense of the word and as here used really is. He does this by means of two examples, both of which are historical and well known to his readers. He quotes the two promises and adds to the second the essential point that brings out just what “promise” really is. Γάρ = I will give you two illustrations in order to help you to understand “promise,” all these prerogatives of Israel which rest on “the promises” (v. 5) and this expression “the children of the promise,” which, alas, applies to so few of the Israelites. The pertinency of the two examples is the more effective because both are promises that were made to the original patriarchs themselves with whom the covenant of promise started. We must, however, note well that Paul’s two examples do not deal with the great covenant promise itself but only with adjuncts, namely with the next two individuals after Abraham who were to be the representative covenant bearers. Analogous to these two, Isaac and Jacob, let us add, was the promise later made to David that he should be a successor in this line.

Paul does not allegorize or produce types: as Isaac was born physically in a wonderful way, so we are born spiritually in a wonderful way. This breaks down when we come to Jacob. Isaac and Jacob cannot be separated, the one to typify one thing, the other another thing; for Paul combines them as illustrating the same thing, namely promise: “And not only she (Sarah) but also Rebecca.” Nor can these promises be made absolute decrees that are illustrative of God’s absolute sovereignty, which predestinates to salvation whom he will (Isaac, Jacob) and reprobates whom he will (Ishmael, Esau); and thus also reprobates the mass of the Jews and likewise the mass of Gentiles. Paul’s two illustrations have nothing to do with an eternal election or predestination of Isaac and of Jacob to salvation and with a reprobation of Ishmael and of Esau to damnation. This anti-Biblical idea is here and elsewhere inserted into Paul’s words.

The genitive is placed forward for the sake of emphasis: “For of promise (is) this word” spoken by God to Abraham. Paul combines Gen. 18:10 and 14: “According to this season I will come, and there shall be for Sarah a son.” We have the predicative genitive (R. 497), and nothing is to be supplied. Look at this word—it is promise, promise pure and simple. Within a year Sarah was to have a son. The previous promises (Gen. 15:4–6; 17:16–27) were now made specific; “according to this season,” in the Hebrew, “at the living time,” i.e., when the time now expiring revives again; so soon Sarah was finally to bear a son. To whom was this promise made?

Why, to Abraham and not to Isaac who had not yet been conceived. A promise, oh, how sweet to Abraham’s ears! The promise of a gift pure and simple, a promise that is so sweet for that reason. For whom was this gift? Why, for Abraham who had so long fed his soul with the previous promises.

There is no allegory or a type of anything here. There is no sovereign election of Isaac to salvation.

Ishmael is quite regularly introduced at this point and the statement made that he was not to be Abraham’s heir in the patriarchal succession (the word “theocratic” is out of line) or that he was not elected unto salvation. But look at this promise—where is Ishmael indicated even by implication? Nowhere! Now if Paul had intended to draw a comparison with Ishmael, why did he not quote Gen. 15:4: “This (Ishmael) shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir”? This would have been the passage and not the one which Paul quotes. And even this passage does not speak of election to salvation and reprobation to damnation. As for Ishmael, read Gen. 17:20, and then v. 23–27 and note that he together with his father and every male in Abraham’s great household received the covenant sign.

Paul could not use Gen. 15:4; he wanted an example of pure, blessed promise, and most certainly has this in the passage he uses. The idea that Isaac illustrates “the children of the promise” over against Ishmael who illustrates “the children of the flesh” is untenable. Isaac was just as physically begotten by Abraham as was Ishmael. The promise Paul quotes has no contrast. It is pure promise, a fine illustration, indeed. It places all the items mentioned in v. 4, 5 in their true light, and that is what Paul wants to do.

Romans 9:10

10 The grammars have some difficulty with οὐμόνονδέ, ἀλλὰκαί. Some think of brachylogy or an anacoluthon and a broken sentence. Verse 10 is a complete sentence; v. 11 begins a new sentence. As he does in many instances, Paul dispenses with verbs, but the grammars supply them. “And not only (supply Sarah to match Rebecca) but also Rebecca, being pregnant from one, Isaac, our father.” The two mothers are placed side by side; both illustrate the same point regarding promise. But the second was pregnant with twins, and what pure promise is there is vividly portrayed in the promise she received. Κοίτηνἔχουσα is idiomatic for “being pregnant”; the noun means “bed” and is a euphemism for Beischlaf and thus for its result, conception.

The importance and the significance of naming the husband, “Isaac,” and of calling him “our father” are sometimes misunderstood. The latter is not stated “from the Jewish standpoint”; Paul does not use “our” in this way, once combining himself with the Christians and then with Jews or with Jewish Christians. “Our” refers to Paul and all the Roman Christians.

The assertion that only Abraham is called “our father” is answered here where Isaac is also so called. And this is done for the reason that together with Abraham and Jacob he was one of the great covenant representatives, all Christians being heirs of the old covenant. Compare all that we have said on “in Isaac” in v. 7. All Christians are seed for Abraham “in Isaac,” and thus he is “our father.” The point of this is that Paul indicates that he is speaking of the patriarchal line of fathers: Sarah’s son was the second, one of Rebecca’s sons was the third. The fixing of our attention on the patriarchal (“theocratic” is not the proper word) succession already excludes allegory or type, salvation or damnation, predestination or reprobation. When God dealt with this succession he made a promise to Isaac’s parents and made another to Jacob’s parents. Both were alike pure promise.

Romans 9:11

11 Now, promise in the full sense of the word—and only this full sense applies to what the Israelites had received from God (v. 4, 5)—is wholly gratuitous. Paul indicates this in the two genitive absolutes: “they not yet having been born nor having done anything good or bad” either to merit or to demerit, to receive credit or to receive blame. Some promises are conditioned on certain performances like that of the Fourth Commandment: “that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” The gifts the Israelites received were not thus conditioned. The examples which are illustrative of God’s promise to Israel are such as promise altogether gratuitously. Such was the promise which gave Isaac to Abraham and this one to Rebecca. Any merit or demerit of either Esau or Jacob was left out in God’s word of promise and in the bestowal of the patriarchal succession.

The principle here followed may, on this its negative side, be summed up in the phrase: “not as a result of (ἐκ) works.” Jacob could not point to works that in any way entitled him to the prerogative promised to him. We know some of the great faults and sins which Jacob afterward manifested. Even if he had been a far better man, no works of his could have merited this promise. In fact, if God had insisted on works he could not have made his promise to any man, not even the original promise that made Abraham the first patriarch, and certainly not the promises which made the Israelites so rich as compared with the Gentiles.

The ἵνα clause of purpose modifies the main verb ἐρρέθη and is placed forward for the sake of emphasis: “in order that God’s purpose according to election may remain.” The emphasis rests on κατʼ ἐκλογήν, but the entire expression, “the purpose according to election,” is a unit. God’s intent in making this promise to Rebecca before her twins were even born and conferring the patriarchal succession on the younger of these twins was that his purpose, which operated with an election on God’s part, should continue.

The force of μένῃ (aorist) should be noted. A thing remains permanently only when it has already been present and in operation. So was this purpose that had been normated by election (not by works), this purpose voiced in God’s gratuitous promises. In the new promise to Rebecca concerning the position of Jacob the same elective purpose remained which had operated in the original promise by which Abraham was granted the position of being the first patriarch, the original father of the Israelite nation; the same elective purpose remained which had granted the position of being second patriarch to Isaac. This was now also true with regard to Jacob as the third and completed the triad. Only three individual men could hold these positions; in fact, God wanted just three.

Let us note that sometimes only one individual can hold a position; Moses is a fine example; Mary, the mother of Jesus, is another. As the great patriarchs, the progenitors of the chosen people, God desired and used three.

He had to elect or choose three individuals, and we know who they were. In regard to the third, God intended (ἵνα) to let his original purpose, that of using election as he had used it before, continue unchanged (μένῃ). What other principle would have served his purpose better, would have produced better results? The principle of works? The choice lay between only these two: a choice made by pure grace or one based on meritorious works. But where could such works be found?

In the two phrases: “not as a result of works but as a result of him who calls,” we have an apposition to the ἵνα clause which enunciates the alternative principles and discards the one in preference to the other. It was utterly hopeless to try to fill any of the three patriarchal places ἐξἔργων, to award them as dues for works. In a competition of this sort all competitors had to fail; for even if one of them had a few more works than all the rest, these could not possibly suffice as a merit that would deserve the position. The only way open was ἐκτοῦκαλοῦντος. This phrase defines “the purpose according to election” just as “not of works” defines “they not having done something good or bad.” The positions had to be awarded solely by a call or an appointment that came from God. In making it he would have to disregard all works and depend only on himself, he in grace making an ἐκλογή or choice. The old grammars make μή in the two genitive absolutes subjective, but the regular negative with participles is μή; when single words or expressions are negated, we have οὐ, hence οὐκἐξἔργων.

Romans 9:12

12 Thus it came about that “it was said” to Rebecca by God: “The older shall serve the younger,” Gen. 25:23, literally, “the greater” shall serve “the lesser.” By leaving the womb first Esau would be the greater and would be regarded as the first-born and his father’s chief heir; Jacob would be the lesser as would be any other son who was born later. This order of birth could count even less with God than works, for his providence could have reversed the order of birth. No: God took the second. It was he, and he alone, who was to designate the final individual in the trio of patriarchs. Order of birth was too slight a matter to turn his appointment either one way or another. He could use only one and he told Rebecca which one he would take.

By telling her he, of course, also told Isaac and thus also told the twins when they grew up. The thing to remember is that this was a gracious promise for all of them. A son of Isaac, a son of Rebecca, a brother of Esau should be the third representative covenant bearer and progenitor of the chosen nation.

We ought to note that Paul quotes only the last clause of Gen. 25:23 and not the rest which speaks of the two nations in Rebecca’s womb, Esau’s nation being stronger than Jacob’s, and yet God chose the weaker as the covenant bearer (1 Cor. 1:27; 2 Cor. 12:10). Some introduce what Paul left out and lay stress on the two nations instead of on the two individuals, Jacob and Esau, and thus hope the more effectively to exclude absolute predestination. We abide by the promise as it is restricted by Paul. We do so the more since this makes plain what is meant by Esau’s “serving” Jacob, a question that is much discussed and often inadequately answered, especially when an answer is sought in the history of the two nations. Jacob was the third patriarch. Esau was thus his inferior.

As “in Isaac” seed was to be called for Abraham so also in Jacob. Esau had the covenant in his twin brother, and not that brother in Esau. Jesus also said: “Salvation is of the Jews,” John 4:22.

To introduce a physical subjection of Esau or a political subjection of Esau’s descendants to those of Jacob, is to go beyond Paul’s thought. What he presents is an example of pure, gratuitous promise, one that is taken from the history of Israel’s patriarchs, a beautiful illustration of the gratuitous bestowal of all the covenant gifts of God upon the Israelites (v. 4, 5).

Romans 9:13

13 The statement cited from Mal. 1:2, 3: “Jacob I treated with an act of love but Esau with an act of hate,” is used by Paul as corroborating the promise of Genesis: “even as it has been written” (the perfect: and is thus still on record). The aorists ἠγάπησα and ὲμίσησα might be constative and summarize God’s different treatment of the two nations until Malachi’s time. But Paul treats this passage in the same way as he treated Gen. 25:23; he takes out of each only what pertains to Jacob and to Esau personally and omits the rest. So we translate the two aorists with reference to the two individual acts when God took Jacob and did not take Esau. The passage is excellently chosen for bringing out what we have repeatedly said regarding Paul’s illustrating how the Israelites got all the gifts mentioned in v. 4, 5. When Israel asked wherein the Lord had loved them they are answered: “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau.” Had Jacob a greater claim to be the next patriarch than Esau?

Why, they were twin brothers! Let the Israelites look at their array of blessings (v. 4, 5) and see in them God’s gratuitous gifts of love.

That is the great point here. The Israelites should have recognized what God had done for them with his grace and his gratuitous promises. They should have recognized the gratuity that made these the pure promises they were. They should, every last one of them, have become “the children of the promise” (v. 8). They did nothing of the kind. They did the exact opposite. They refused faith; they became obdurate in unbelief and in their unbelief grew presumptuous. Outrageous! When Paul thought of it, it nearly broke his heart. To use such blessings only for their own damnation—incredible but, alas, a fact!

“I did hate” is highly anthropopathic but refers to the effect that Esau was not made the third patriarch and not to the affect. Hate is used comparatively to love. On this use compare Gen. 29:30, 31; Deut. 21:15–17; Prov. 13:24; Matt. 10:37 and its restatement in Luke 14:26; finally, John 12:25. The Jewish apocryphal citations in Sanday and Headlam, Enoch 89, 11–12; Jubilees 37, 22, etc., have no exegetical value and reflect only late Jewish hatred of Esau. Sufficient has been said regarding the Calvinistic interpretation.

Mercy

Romans 9:14

14 From the idea of pure Promise Paul advances to that of pure Mercy which is both the substance of the promise and its motivation. Remember that these two go together. All that Paul says regarding promise is made still clearer when he lifts the lid of promise and shows us the whole vessel filled with pure, unqualified mercy. All that Paul lists in v. 4, 5 was pure mercy. Only as mercy could God have bestowed all these blessed gifts. Israel should have recognized the mercy, should have opened its heart wide in faith to take in all this mercy.

Because it did the very opposite Paul’s grief is tragic. All this mercy, and then to treat it in this outrageous way! But even then God’s Word has not fallen by the way (v. 6); God has prepared himself vessels of mercy who do receive that mercy and all the glory of its riches in faith (v. 23, 24).

First mercy, and this mercy is evident in the judgments which men force God to bring down on them. What, then, shall we say? namely to these gratuitous promises when, even in making his appointments (Isaac and Jacob as patriarchs), anything like works was vacuous, and God could consider only himself. Not (certainly, that there is) unrighteousness (in the sense of injustice) with God? Perish the thought! Μή is the interrogative particle that expects a negative answer and can be rendered into English only with difficulty. Paul himself at once gives that negative answer in his most emphatic way (see 3:4). The negating form of the question indicates that it was not asked by some objector, Jew, Judaizer, or Jewish Christian, whom Paul is silencing.

God’s disregard of works, of anything but himself when bestowing his great promises, may lead anyone to think of something like ἀδικία, injustice, say partiality or favoritism, on his part. But every Christian will intuitively repudiate the thought. Righteousness (justice) belongs to the very nature of God. To the mere suggestion of the possibility of the opposite every Christian will automatically exclaim with Paul, “Perish the thought!”

Romans 9:15

15 The γάρ is not to prove the statement that there is no justice on the part of God in these promises; for what follows is not proof, nor does the axiom of God’s justice ever call for proof. Nor does γάρ elucidate, for what follows is not elucidation or explanation, and why should an axiom need further elucidation? This γάρ introduces a word that was spoken by God himself to no less a person than Moses, a word which goes far beyond the two examples of promises mentioned in v. 9–12, a word which frankly states that, not only in an instance or two has God acted in such a way that superficial minds might see injustice in his action, but that he always acts so toward men, that this is the very principle of his action. Γάρ is at times used simply to confirm; it does so here: “yea.” This word spoken to Moses, the mediator of the old covenant, stands for all time and overtops even the examples cited from patriarchal history.

Yea, to Moses he declares: I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and will pity whomever I will pity (Exod. 33:19). In the Greek the first verb is transitive: “I will mercy whomever I will mercy.” This is not an attempt to tone down, to excuse, to make apology; this is the very opposite, a statement that is intended to be extreme to the very point of apparent injustice.

But the very fact that God states (λέγει) this, pronounces it in a solemn dictum which goes far beyond any deduction that we or Paul may make from God’s promises, settles the matter more strongly than ever. Why, God would be deliberately declaring to Moses that injustice is the principle that governs all his actions toward men! On the face of it that is an impossible declaration. The very fact that God declares this regarding his mercy settles it forever that, in extending his mercy as he does, no shadow of unrighteousness could possibly be involved. That is one great advantage of stating a principle in such decisive language—it literally overwhelms and wipes out all wrong deductions although they may be made from a few acts alone with a show of correctness. In this sense Paul quotes God’s word addressed to Moses. The thought is this: Perish the thought of injustice! why (γάρ), God himself says to Moses what goes far, far beyond the two promises with which he made Isaac and Jacob the next patriarchs after Abraham!

The two statements mean the same thing; the addition of the one regarding pity to the one concerning mercy only emphasizes the great principle. The two Greek verbs are like their Hebrew equivalents chanan and cicham, the only difference being that to extend mercy includes both motive and resultant act and to pity confines itself to the motive. On ἄν with indefinite relative clauses see R. 958, etc.; when the indicative is used in such clauses as in v. 18, ἄν is not necessary; of course, when ἄν (= ἐάν) is used, the clause has the subjunctive as in v. 15. To be merciful and to pity are here to be taken in the broadest sense and thus not in distinction from showing grace but as involving grace. For this mercy and this pity are the undeserved favor Dei which is usually specified as χάρις or “grace.”

“I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy” means, “I will not demand works,” v. 11, for then no mercy would ever be shown, for no man is ever able to furnish the necessary works. The extending of mercy must necessarily be wholly ἐκτοῦκαλοῦντος, must emanate solely from him who offers the mercy. see Eph. 2:3, 4. Mercy and works exclude each other (Rom. 11:6, where the word used is “grace”). In v. 4–12 everything is viewed with reference to the idea of promise; here it is viewed with reference to the idea of mercy. All that is listed in v. 4, 5 was pure mercy to the Israelites; all that the Christians, both Jewish and Gentile, now have is the same pure mercy. “Pity” makes all of this still stronger. How could pity ever demand works?

Mercy, and still more, pity are called out by the wretched condition of those who have lost everything and are plunged into woe. In God both qualities are perfect. This is another important point.

Calvinism disregards this. It has God extend mercy and pity to only a few of the wretched and lost. For the great mass of the wretched God has no mercy, no pity but only judgment, damnation. Mercilessly, pitilessly he lets them perish in their wretchedness, yea, decrees that they shall so perish. In the mercy and the pity a peculiar sovereignty is substituted for the blessed quality which makes each what it really is in God, the response of his nature to man’s wretchedness and not at all an answer to man’s works. This is done by laying a peculiar limiting stress on the relative clauses: “on whomever I will have mercy—whomever I will pity.” These clauses do no mean that God will not allow anyone to restrict him in exercising his mercy and his pity, restrict him to men and their works which they suppose they have, or their claims and rights (such as physical birth) which they imagine are theirs.

They are taken to mean that God intended to show mercy and pity only to a few who were chosen by him in an absolute way. The fact that such a sovereignty in God would be the very embodiment of unrighteousness and injustice is brushed away by simple Calvinistic denial and by such pleas as that God owes nothing to the non-elect.

The true sovereignty in connection with God’s mercy and pity is that he extends it to whomever he will, unhampered, unrestricted by limits that men may set up, undisturbed by charges of injustice that men’s foolish reasoning may prefer. In this blessed sovereignty he shapes what he will do so that the sweet purpose of mercy and of pity will be attained to the utmost among men. To what extent his mercy goes, far beyond what men would think possible, we shall see presently in his treatment of the obdurate who despise his mercy and attempt to interfere with its working. There is no sovereignty that restricts mercy and pity in God, no sovereignty that places mercilessness and pitilessness for all the rest beside mercy and pity for a few. There is only the sovereignty that overthrows restrictions such as men think should be set up by works, etc., of theirs or by secret eternal decrees of God.

When God showered the streams of his mercy on Israel (v. 4, 5) he inaugurated the plan to send Christ and salvation for the world (Gen. 18:18, “all the nations of the earth”). This vast, unrestricted mercy was the purport of the first covenant with Abraham. When God made Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the three patriarchs of this covenant he made them such, not merely for themselves, but for all those to whom this covenant could possibly extend. Ishmael had the covenant in his father and his half brother even as Ishmael received the covenant sign of circumcision (Gen. 17:26). Esau had the covenant in the same way. The sovereign design of God made his mercy and his pity extend to the utmost.

Romans 9:16

16 So then (it is) not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of him that has mercy, of God, i.e., v. 11: “not as a result of works but as a result of him who calls.” Ἄραοὖν = accordingly therefore (see 5:18) and makes a deduction. Both subject and predicate are omitted, and all that we can supply is the unimportant: “it is” or “this is a matter.” The three genitives are the usual possessives with εἶναι.

This whole matter is not one of a man willing or not willing as though, unless a man first put forth a certain amount of volition, God would not extend his mercy and pity to him; nor one of a man running or not running as though, unless a man first ran and put forth all his exertion like a runner in a race, the prize of God’s mercy and pity would not be accorded him. The idea that mercy and pity are ever thus obtained is self-contradictory. They are directed toward the wretched and lost who have no power to run or even to will. Far removed, too, is the thought of restriction as though, if men will ever so earnestly, run ever so strenuously, all is in vain if they are not among the elect: they remain under God’s merciless, pitiless judgment of damnation.

No; it is as plain as day: according to God’s own statement to Moses this is solely a matter “of him that has or extends the mercy,” namely of “God.” Regard τοῦἐλεῶντος as a mate to the other substantivized participles, and Θεοῦ as an apposition. Note also that the three participles are present, express durative actions. God continues in mercy. Not only is our willing and running discounted because it is in vain to ask it of us, and no one would ever get mercy and pity if he had to will or to run; but even if we did will and did run for ever so long a time, how could either effort obtain such a thing as mercy and pity? This is of God alone, his seeing our utter helplessness, wretchedness, and misery, his letting his heart go out to us in mercy. Our woeful state and nothing else in us or done by us moves him.

Oh, that we would understand mercy aright, would recognize that it is all “of him that has mercy”! How we should then in gratitude drink in that pure, sweet mercy!

Paul is speaking of the original bestowal of mercy, hence he is not in conflict with 1 Cor. 9:24: “So run that ye may obtain!” and Heb. 12:1: “Let us run with patience the race,” etc. After God’s mercy puts spiritual life into us, we will, indeed, become active.

It is advisable to abide by the words Paul quotes from Exod. 33:19, and not to consider the whole episode with regard to Moses, his prayer to see God’s face, etc. As in v. 12 Paul uses only the words quoted and no more, so he here employs this one word addressed to Moses, which is lucid in itself, comprehensive in every way, and blessed indeed. The author’s interpretation of Exod. 33:17–23 is found in The Eisenach Old Testament Selections 316, etc.

Romans 9:17

17 Γάρ is parallel to the γάρ occurring in v. 14. It introduces neither proof nor elucidation but confirmation; we translate it “yea.” As v. 14 confirms with intensity what Paul says about the promises, so this additional dictum, the one addressed to Pharaoh, overtops even that spoken to Moses in the intensity of its confirmation as to how God promises and carries out his promises. Some are puzzled as to why Pharaoh is introduced at this point. Those who here find a proof e contrario let this word once more prove that God is not unrighteous. Calvinists accept this and find the proof in God’s sovereignty, which allows him to do as he pleases: save one, damn another. But all assertions of sovereignty, no matter how strong, prove nothing as to the righteousness or unrighteousness of that sovereignty and of its acts. If God says, “I am sovereign, I am sovereign!” this is not equivalent to saying, “I am therefore righteous!”

The fact that God is righteous is axiomatic and is settled as being axiomatic in v. 13. To prove it is like trying to prove that whiteness is white, that the sun is light, that God does not sin. The asserting of a sovereignty that is merciful to some and merciless and pitiless to others does not prove righteousness, in fact, it does the opposite. But a sovereignty that extends gratuitous promises and asks for no works (v. 11), that extends pure mercy and asks for no willing or running and looks only to our wretchedness (v. 16), needs only to be seen as what it is, and every thought of unrighteousness will perish before it is even uttered. And when all this promise, mercy, and pity which is infinitely removed from mercilessness and pitilessness deals with even those who despise this promise, mercy, and pity so as to conserve, augment, and crown God’s plans of promise, mercy, and pity, the picture is complete, and the full, stainless glory of God is revealed.

For this reason the word addressed to Pharaoh is placed beside the word spoken to Moses. What God said to Pharaoh is not a mere example taken from Scripture, an example that is chosen just because it is so strong. Pharaoh and Moses belong together: the mediator of the initial great fulfillment of the promise, mercy, and pity, and the tyrant who sought to block this initial fulfillment. Not only did God bring about that fulfillment in spite of this tyrant—that was the smallest part of it—he made the very wickedness of this tyrant reveal to all the world throughout all future generations the sovereign power and the glory of the Name which carry out all God’s promise, mercy, and pity in the covenant and gave Christ and salvation to the world (v. 5).

Yea, the Scripture says to Pharaoh: For this very purpose did I raise thee up in order that I might show forth in connection with thee my power, that my Name might be published abroad in all the earth.

Note the parallel; γὰρλέγει in v. 14, and now λέγειγάρ, the words being placed chiastically. “Says the Scripture,” with subject and predicate reversed = it even said this in so many words to Pharaoh. Of course, “the Scripture” = God, but it is not a mere variant term for God. No Scripture had as yet been written, this word of God’s recorded in Exod. 9:16 was carried to Pharaoh by the mouth of Moses; Paul writes “the Scripture” because this word delivered to Pharaoh was not intended for him alone but at the same time, through the divine record, for “all the earth.” The existence of the Scripture is itself a mercy. The two purpose clauses introduced with ὅπως are appositions to the purpose phrase εἰςαὐτὸτοῦτο, “for this very thing.”

The Hebrew has the hiphil of ʿamad, tolerativ: bestehen lassen (Ed. Koenig); LXX, διετηρήθης, “thou wast carefully kept.” Paul discarded the translation of the LXX and translated the Hebrew verb ἐξήγειρα. The opinion is scarcely correct that Paul changed the sense of the Hebrew from “let thee recover” from the plague of boils instead of letting thee die in this plague, to “raised thee up,” i.e., to be ruler of Egypt at this time. It is rather the case that the LXX understood the Hebrew verb in the former more common sense and that Paul corrected this to the other meaning which this Hebrew verb has in the hiphil, the one that was intended in Exodus. It is also to be noted that we do not know positively whether Pharaoh himself was struck with boils and certainly not that he nearly died because of them. In either case we must say that it was the hand of providence that either kept him alive during that plague or raised him to the Egyptian throne during the period in which the exodus of Israel was to take place.

The divine purpose of raising Pharaoh to Egypt’s throne was that God “might show forth his power in him.” God does not say, “against him.” There is no indication of Pharaoh’s death or only of Pharaoh and of what happened to him. This is not an example of removing some wicked man, of letting him flourish for a time “like a green bay tree” (Ps. 37:35) only to end by being cut off (v. 38). Pharaoh is a minor figure, a side issue. God displayed his power in the miracles which he wrought in delivering Israel from Egypt. He displayed this power in the interest of Israel so that Israel might see with what a mighty hand he was fulfilling for them the old promises which had been made to the patriarchs (Abraham, etc.,) relative to Canaan and to what should follow there, fulfilling his mercy on them in great pity when they were being crushed and ground to nothing by a fierce tyrant. Israel saw that God’s power alone carried out the promises and the mercy.

This is not mere omnipotence or omnipotence set over against mercy but omnipotence serving mercy. Later in the Bible we find constant references to the mighty way in which God carried out his promise and his mercy in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.

The Lord rules even in the midst of his enemies (Ps. 110:2). Pharaoh would have been the man that he was no matter when or where he might have been a ruler, no matter whether he was a ruler or a subject. What greater efforts to change his iron will, to bend it to consent to God’s plans of mercy, could God have made than he did make? What greater patience could God have exercised? You and I might have ended things with one or two plagues; God sent ten (the number of completeness). The use that God made of this wicked man was to reveal the more his mercy and the power with which this mercy carries through its plans.

We know only too well what little faith the Israelites had then and throughout their history, and how constantly God had to reveal to them the power back of his mercy. If a mild ruler had occupied the throne and had let Israel go without a struggle, Israel would not have appreciated this providence in its mercy. In the case of a tyrant of almost incredible hardness of heart the power displayed in the mercy was overwhelming. For centuries it impressed Israel and was reported in all the world.

But here we again have what Ishmael had, what Esau had. Now “all the earth” was to have it. For the full extent of God’s purpose was: “in order that my Name might be published abroad (διά in the verb) in all the earth.” “My Name” = the revelation of God (see 2:24). “My Name” is a gospel term; the revelation of who and what God really is in his love, mercy, grace, and saving power. God’s purpose in the way in which he delivered Israel went far beyond Israel. All Egypt was to know this God who, despite its ruler’s opposition, executed his mercy in favor of the people who believed in him and in his promises; yea, the publication of this Name which was full of the gospel of mercy thus mightily carried out was to resound “in all the earth.” It resounds to this day. The Jews still celebrate their Passover which keeps publishing the exodus; but the Scriptures and the Christian Church publish the Name as it was connected with the exodus and with all to which the exodus was to lead, more effectively and now literally “in all the earth.”

Ἐνσοί does not mean, “in thee,” in hardening thy heart, in damning thee under an eternal decree; but “in connection with thee” as the one who was raised up to rule Egypt at this time.

Romans 9:18

18 As God’s statement recorded in v. 17 parallels his statement mentioned in v. 14, so the deduction made in v. 18 parallels that made in v. 16. Both begin with ἄραοὗν. But this last deduction is drawn from the entire paragraph; that of v. 16 from only v. 15. So then, on whom he wills he has mercy, but whom he wills he hardens.

The first half of this verse repeats God’s own statement to Moses recorded in v. 14 and has already been interpreted. The very words, “whom he wills he mercies” (ἐλεεῖ is again transitive), preclude the meaning that some of the wretched and lost are treated with mercy while other wretched and lost ones are treated with mercilessness, both being done according to an eternal sovereign decree. The correlative of the verb “to mercy” is the misery of the lost.

“Whom he wills he hardens” cannot mean that God hardens some of the wretched and lost in consequence of an absolute eternal decree. The correlative of “he hardens” is not a poor, wretched, lost sinner. The only hardening that is effected by God and which the Scriptures are acquainted with is judicial; the only objects of this hardening are men who have first hardened themselves against all God’s mercy and have done that to such an extent as to be beyond further reach of that mercy. The dogmaticians are helpful when they point out that the extension of mercy occurs by means of the voluntas antecedens, but that God’s act of hardening never occurs thus but is solely an act of the voluntas consequens. The two statements of v. 18 could not be reversed so as to read: “Whom he wills he hardens; whom he wills he mercies,” i.e., both by his eternal, antecedent will.

Ten times Exodus reports that Pharaoh hardened himself; then, only in consequence of this self-hardening, we read ten times that God hardened this self-hardened man, see Keil, Genesis und Exodus 338, etc. In each instance ten is the number of completeness. Even the hardening by God’s agency is not complete at once; it follows these stages: permissive—desertive (Spiritum suum subtrahit)—occasionaliter—judicialiter; only the last is final and hopeless. The door of mercy is not shut at once on the self-hardened so that they crash into the locked door with a bang. We might rush to close it thus. God’s mercy closes it gradually and is ready to open it wide again at the least show of repentance in answer to his mercy; and not until all the warnings of the gradually closing door are utterly in vain does the door sink regretfully into its lock.

In Exod. 4:21 the Lord tells Moses the final outcome: “I will harden his heart”; and “all those wonders” refers to all of them that Moses was to do before Pharaoh. After five plagues Pharaoh hardened his heart progressively; then after the sixth God’s hardening sets in (Exod. 9:12). After the seventh it is again Pharaoh (Exod. 9:35); then it is God who hardened but now in complete tragedy (Exod. 10:20, 27; 11:10; 14:4, 5). The history of this hardening certainly speaks for itself. Pharaoh wanted none of the mercy for himself and for his own nation and with all his might intended to block the plans of that mercy with regard to Israel. The case of the Jews was even worse, for all the mercy was covenanted to be theirs, and they did not only refuse it and crucify the Christ but intended to prevent all other men from receiving this mercy (Matt. 23:13).

Romans 9:19

19 “What, then, shall we say?” in v. 13 ushers in a thought that might occur to most of Paul’s Christian readers. When he now uses the singular: Thou wilt say then to me, Why doth he yet blame? we are to note that only here and there an individual Christian might ask this question. If God raised up Pharaoh in order to harden him, why does God still blame Pharaoh? For his counsel who has withstood? i.e., who has ever successfully withstood. βούλημα (the suffix -μα to indicate result, R. 151) means consilium captum, something which God has resolved. God certainly carries out his resolutions, and no man is able to resist them. But if that is true—and has not Paul himself said it?—why does God still blame the helpless victims?

These questions involve far more than the one asked in v. 13. For in v. 13 the interrogative particle μή implies that, in whatever way the difficulty is solved, such a thing as injustice on the part of God is out of the question; but here the implication is that the victim of God’s counsel cannot possibly be blamed by the God who resolved that counsel, the whole blame rests on God who determined that counsel. In other words, in v. 13 no presumptuousness was manifested, the Christian mind was only wrestling with a difficulty; but here some individual Christian forgets himself and lets his mind turn toward presumptuousness and arrogance.

Romans 9:20

20 For this reason Paul answers this man as he does and confronts him with the arrogance which prompts such questions. Skeptics constantly reason about God in this arrogant way. Their little logic takes God to task as if their logical combinations must be absolutely sound, and God’s doings unquestionably wrong. Sound explanations are lost on them, for they would not accept them, however true and lucid they might be, they would meet them with only more of arrogant logical objections. John 8:33–59 is a case in point; the Jews finally resorted to slander (v. 48) and then to stones (v. 59). Now and then a foolish Christian mind starts on this same presumptuous track and must then be brought to a sharp halt. That is what Paul does here.

O man, nay rather thou, who art thou that quarrelest with God? In the Greek “O” with the vocative is rather rare, hence it is emphatic when it is used. If μενοῦνγε is “yes, indeed,” thou, who art thou? it would be ironical; when it is translated “nay rather,” it would be corrective and remind him who entertains these presumptuous questions of what he is really doing, namely setting himself up as one who is entitled to answer back to no less a being than God, mit Gott rechten willst du (Luther). The present tense = go on answering back to, i.e., engage in quarrelling. The word refers to God’s pronouncements made in v. 14 and 17 and at the same time implies that by answering back to God, i.e., contradicting him, this man arrogantly lifts himself to a level that is equal with God. A Christian would be frightened by the very thought of doing such a thing.

Suppose we did not see through God’s counsels, shall we with our poor, erring creature minds take the infinite mind and the perfect will of God to task? In Paul’s language: “Perish the thought!” see also 3:4.

Utilizing the thought and a part of the very language of Isa. 29:16, Paul emphasizes still more the contents of God’s word spoken to Moses (v. 14) and of that addressed to Pharaoh (v. 17) plus the deductions he has made from these words (v. 16, 18). Shall the thing molded say to him who did mold it, Why didst thou make me thus? Or has not the potter a right regarding the clay, from the same lump to make the one part a vessel for honor and the other for dishonor?

The questions are self-answering. The sense is identical with that of v. 14–18, but it is now expressed in such a figurative way as to show both the ridiculousness and the presumptuousness of an objection. The first question leaves the molded objects undivided; the second (v. 21) adds the division. The point is too fine and at the same time not clear which says that οὕτως refers to the action of the molder and not to the object molded, and that the adverb thus refers to the circumstances and the presuppositions of the molding and not to the fashion of the molded object, like the LXX of Isa. 29:16; οὐσυνετῶςμεἐποίησας, “not sensibly didst thou make me.” The manner of the making (“thus”) evidently determines the character of the thing made although we need not translate, “Why didst thou make me to be thus?”

Romans 9:21

21 “Or” is conjunctive (1:21; 2:4; 4:13); the alternative question has the same sense. “Right in regard to (or over) the clay” has the objective genitive, and “to make” is the dative infinitive (R. 1062; B.-D. 393, 3 regards it as an infinitive with impersonal expressions). The potter may certainly from the same lump of clay mold one part into a beautiful vessel “for honor” to be set up as an ornament in the house, say a vase or a statue, and another part into a vessel “for dishonor” such as a slop jar or a vessel for the bedchamber. Who will gainsay him this right?

Calvinism finds its peculiar sovereignty of God in this verse: supralapsarian Calvinism the sovereignty which created some men to fall and to be damned and other men to be saved despite the fall, both according to an absolute decree; infralapsarian Calvinism the sovereignty which from the same fallen lump of humanity decreed and shaped some to salvation and decreed and shaped some to damnation. Such a sovereignty which is contrary to God’s very nature as ἀγάπη does not exist.

Calvinism assumes that the whole story as to why some are saved and others are lost is figuratively described in this verse, but the tertium comparationis of this figure, like every tertium of a figure, deals only with one point, that of blame; as the potter cannot be blamed by any vessel which he turns out for dishonor instead of making it like another for honor, so also God cannot be blamed by any man whom he hardens instead of saving him. After his case was concluded, Pharaoh could not demand of God: “Why didst thou make me thus?” The Jews, equally obdurate, could not in the end, when God had finished with them, blame God: “Thou didst make us thus!” The tertium of the potter and his two vessels extends no farther. For the figure of the potter and the clay could not picture the self-hardening of Pharaoh and of the Jews in permanent obduracy against God’s mercy, which self-hardening called forth God’s judicial hardening.

Unnecessary fear of Calvinistic predestinarianism leads some to restrict the figure so as to have it apply only to God’s providence, to the circumstances and the conditions amid which God brings certain men into being, the implication being that God should not have brought them into being. But the chief point presented in support of this view is not correct, namely that the character of the vessels is not stated but only their purpose: “for honor—for dishonor.” “A vessel for honor—for dishonor” designates the character of each, designates the finished product, the one being fit for honor, the other fit for dishonor, the one fit for heaven, the other fit only for hell; it certainly does not designate only some circumstance or condition that existed when the vessels were made. “The same lump”—Moses and Pharaoh, the obdurate Jews and the believing Christians, were of the same human clay.

Romans 9:22

22 Now the striking point in regard to reproaching God in any way. But what if God, although his will is to show forth his wrath and to make known his power, bore in great longsuffering vessels of wrath (already) fitted for destruction, and (this) in order to make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy which he made ready in advance for glory, them whom also he called—us, not only from among Jews, but also from among Gentiles?

So immense is the mercy of God, so intense his purpose to make known its riches to men by living examples in order to draw them to this mercy, that he puts off his wrath and his power and the destruction which these must visit on the obdurate. The sentence is without a formal apodosis, it is just a case of aposiopesis (R. 1203), a part of the sentence being suppressed due to emotion or for effect. It is quite common with conditions of reality: “But if—what then?” in English: “But what if?” Besides the foolish presumptuousness involved in asking why the wicked, when they are hardened, are still blamed for the hardening which they cannot resist, the astounding fact that God bears with them in order to advertise his mercy the more, in order to save men from all hardening—this ought to make all such questioning impossible.

The θέλων is concessive: “although willing to show forth,” etc. When L. makes it final and parallel to ἵνα in v. 23, he obscures the sense of the word which does not mean in der Absicht. When men are ripe for judgment, God has the will to strike them down in judgment; yet he delays this in the interest of his grace. Foolish men may think that his threats of judgment are not serious; God is willing to run that risk. Displaying his grace is supreme to him.

Two infinitives state God’s punitive will, but they state it, not in its punitive character, but in its warning intent for others who may yet be warned and saved; “to show forth his wrath (see 1:18) and to make known his power” (τὸδυνατὸναὐτοῦ, the neuter for the abstract δύναμις used in v. 17, a classical construction, R. 763). see v. 17 regarding the purpose of God in raising up wicked Pharaoh. Far and wide men are to see as a warning that “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” Heb. 10:31. There is mercy even in the wrath and the power visited on the wicked.

Paul writes that God “bore in great longsuffering vessels of wrath (already) fitted for destruction.” The tense is historical, an aorist, “he bore,” and not the didactic present, “he bears.” Paul has many examples in mind. Nor does he call them merely “vessels of wrath” (no article) but adds the perfect participle (with its present implication): “having been fitted for destruction,” which means that for a long time they have already been ripe for their doom. God should have destroyed them long ago but delayed and delayed. Although they are intolerable to him, he tolerated them, and this required “great longsuffering” indeed (see 2:4, μακροθυμία). God exercised this longsuffering because of his immense purpose of mercy.

We at once think of Pharaoh. At the first meeting with Moses he hardened himself, but God delayed. He hardened himself after each of the first five plagues, and still God bore with him. Even after God’s judicial hardening had set in, this delay continued. We are told its purpose in v. 17; we now again see it. Egypt and all the world got to see, not only God’s wrath and power, but especially also “the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy,” Israel.

The judgment upon Judas was delayed; Jesus warned him to the last. His end is a warning for all time, but his traitorousness served only to work out Christ’s redemptive death. The Jews who rejected and crucified Christ were surely fit for destruction, but God delayed for forty years before he wiped out their nation as a nation and displayed his wrath and his power. And during that entire time his mercy built up the church out of Jews and Gentiles so that the glory of that mercy might be seen by the world. God still bears with the obdurate Jews. He has made them a standing miracle, a people living among all nations and yet never being absorbed, a sign of his wrath and his power and a sign, too, of the vast mercies they once had (v. 4, 5).

Romans 9:23

23 The purpose (worthy, indeed, of worship) of this longsuffering is: “in order to make known (in all the world—the second ὅπως clause in v. 17) the riches of his glory (of the divine attributes of love, grace, mercy, etc.) on vessels (on living examples, true Christians),” etc. Who would have known about God’s mercy toward Israel if God had struck down Pharaoh on that first day when Moses demanded Israel’s release? Who would have known about God’s mercy toward the church that was made up of Jews and Gentiles if God had destroyed the Jewish nation when Herod killed the Baptist, or when the Sanhedrin first plotted Jesus’ death? “Vessels of mercy” matches “vessels of wrath,” both genitives are attributive (R. 496), both are without articles: “mercy-vessels—wrath-vessels,” qualitative, such as are this.

When the latter are described, a perfect passive participle is used: “fitted for destruction,” which hides the agent who, therefore, is not God—Satan fitted them. Now when the vessels of mercy are described, a relative clause is used, the subject of the verb being God: “which he made ready in advance for glory.” We make the action of this aorist contemporaneous with that of the aorist “he bore.” The time indicated by the πρό in the verb is that prior to the reception of these vessels of mercy into glory, here the glory of heaven. God could take them away soon after they become ready but he wants to let the world know the glory of his mercy which is resting on (ἐπί) them. Note these same thoughts in the high-priestly prayer, John 17:15 and 20–23; then in 1 Pet. 2:9–12.

In order to escape naming either God or the devil as the agent, some regard κατηρτισμένα as an adjective, as though it thereby ceased to be a perfect participle, and as though thereby the question regarding the agent were abolished. This agent is either God or the devil or the vessels themselves. Predestinarians and some others that follow them date προητοίμασεν back to eternity and have it signify der ewige göttliche Ratschluss als eine vor der Zeit der Welt geschehene Bereitung. This is done despite the fact that “made ready in advance” is the exact counterpart to the participle “having been fitted,” the perfect tense of which reaches back in the same way. Both reach back only in time, into the lives of those concerned, and not back into eternity. Who would say: “God prepared us in advance to glory,” and expect others to take this to mean: “God prepared us by an eternal decree before the time of the world”?

Romans 9:24

24 Paul adds a relative clause which is rather emphatic because it is placed at the end: “them whom also he called,” and then the apposition: “—us, not only from among Jews, but also from among Gentiles.” The relative clause is still objective like “vessels of mercy” save that οὕς is masculine ad sensum since these vessels are persons. “Also called” does not mean in addition to preparing in advance as though the preparation in advance (taking this to refer only to prevenient grace) was finished before the calling (by operative grace) took place. Καί, which is placed before the verb, does not modify ἡμᾶς although it has been translated: “even us whom he has called,” and: zu denen er auch uns berufen hat (L.). Nor is οὕς predicative to ἡμᾶς: “as which also he called us.” While this clause recalls 8:30: “these also he called; and whom he called,” the verbs used in 8:30 are gnomic while here, in 9:22–24, the aorists are historical. In 8:30 we have: “these he also glorified,” but here only: “he prepared in advance for glory.” “Also called” is a part of the advance preparation for glory and is singled out by καί as being the most tangible and evidential part of the preparation, singled out as evidential because Paul adds to the objective designations in the third person (“vessels of mercy—which—whom”) the subjective specification “us.” The sense is: “In this preparation we have also received the call of God’s grace and gospel”; we know that this call has been successful and effective in us, it constitutes the preparation.

The verb καλέω is regularly used in the epistles to indicate the successful call. When Paul writes, “us, not only from Jews, but also from Gentiles,” this mention of the composition of the Roman congregation and of so many other congregations, especially its great membership of Gentiles, shows the very mercy that operates even so as to make God’s wrath and power against obdurate Judaism subservient to its blessed purpose of salvation. For the more Judaism was hardened, the more it was fitted for destruction. While God in longsuffering delayed the blow of his wrath and power, his mercy succeeded the more in producing vessels of mercy, “not only from among Jews, but also (and especially) from among Gentiles” (both nouns are without articles and are purely qualitative).

What a triumph of God’s mercy! He who exercises such mercy and exercises it to such a degree and to such an extent—can one find fault with him when he judicially hardens those who are adamantly obdurate against such mercy, find fault with him for his blaming those who are hardened thus because in the end they cannot withstand the punitive judicial hardening they have brought upon themselves despite all his mercy?

Romans 9:25

25 The opinion is held by some that Paul now offers Scripture proof or at least Scriptural justification for God’s calling not only Jews but also Gentiles into the church. But why should he offer such proof when his discussion does not concern the composition of the church but the tragic obduracy of the bulk of the Jews? It is regarding this that the two prophets are quoted.

Hosea prophesied concerning the northern kingdom, called Israel, whose judgment culminated in the deportation of 200, 000 into Assyria in 722 B. C.; these are the lost ten tribes who never returned. Isaiah prophesied regarding the power of Assyria which would leave a remnant to the southern kingdom, called Juda.

The pertinency of these prophetic utterances in the order given by Paul is apparent. They show the obduracy of the Jews, God’s wrath and power in punishment, his longsuffering when he did not at once send them to destruction (v. 22), and, rising above all, the wonderful purpose of mercy toward the remnant, the vessels of mercy, on whom is bestowed the riches of his glory.

The opinion noted has the passages quoted from Hosea refer to the Gentile Christians by saying that the deported northern kingdom was absorbed by Gentilism, lost all Judaism, and thus, when the gospel spread everywhere, all the descendants of these exiles which it saved were Gentiles. But why quote passages such as this to establish the admission of Gentiles when many passages speak of Gentiles directly? The passages quoted from Hosea show how God’s word was fulfilled even in the case of the ten Israelite tribes; the fact that they became Gentile makes the fulfillment only the more striking.

As also he says in Hosea:

I will call my non-people my people

And the non-beloved beloved.

And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, Not my people you!

There shall they be called sons of the living God.

“As also” means that what Hosea states is very similar to what Paul has been saying about vessels of wrath and hardening and about mercy and vessels of mercy; “as” also indicates that Paul is quoting without formal exactness. In order to understand the terms “non-people” and “non-beloved” read Hos. 1:2–9. At God’s direction Hosea married a whore and called the daughter born to her Lo-ruchama, “not having obtained mercy,” ἡοὐκἠγαπημένη, “the one not having been loved,” with the present force of the perfect participle, “the non-loved” (feminine because it was a daughter); and the second son he called Lo-ammi, “not my people.” This whore and her children (Hos. 1:2) symbolized the idolatrous northern kingdom, called Israel in distinction from the southern kingdom, called Juda.

Paul quotes from Hos. 2:23 but reverses the statements and places the one embodying the boy’s name before that embodying the girl’s name. Paul then adds Hos. 1:10, which is longer than either of the two statements found in 2:23 but expresses the same thought. These utterances of Hosea declare the same truth concerning the northern kingdom that Paul has just been expressing about the vessels of wrath and about those of mercy. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom who were completely idolatrous, a “non-people” as far as God was concerned, a “non-beloved” woman (feminine), from whom God had to turn away his love, these tribes were deported and, unlike the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem, were swallowed up and amalgamated and lost their identity among the Gentiles. Thus were the wrath of God and his power displayed in them as vessels of wrath.

But this was not to be the end of God’s dealings. Hos. 1:10 refers to the promise given to Abraham: “The number of the children of Israel (spiritual children) shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered” (Gen. 22:17). This promise was repeated to Jacob (Gen. 32:17). That word of promise did not fall by the way (Rom. 9:6). The time would come when the gospel of Jesus Christ would be carried out into all the world, would reach also the descendants of these lost ten tribes, and many would be converted. Their intermixture with Gentiles would not interfere with this.

God’s mercy would make many of them vessels of mercy to receive the riches of his glory. Thus the word spoken through Hosea would reach its fulfillment: “I will call my non-people my people and the non-beloved beloved.” Above all that God does with vessels of wrath rises his purpose (ἵνα, v. 23) regarding vessels of mercy.

Romans 9:26

26 The lines quoted from Hos. 1:10 repeat the thought and add one point, namely that in the very place where these deported people were at one time called “Not my people—you!” they will at last be called “sons of the living God.” It is noted that ἐκεῖ is not found in the original or in the LXX; but it is evident that Paul adds it in order to show that he is stressing the phrase “in the place”—“there,” right there they shall be called “sons,” etc. Why should one think of making this place Palestine, the original home of the ten tribes, when it is so evidently the Gentile land where these tribes had ceased to be God’s people? When a single term is to be negated, οὐ is used, thus in v. 25, in τὸνοὐλαόνμου, and in τὴνοὐκἠγαπημένην although the latter is a participle, B.-D. 426. “God living” is a standard designation, a name that is opposed to all pagan gods who are but dead idols.

Romans 9:27

27 The importance of the passages quoted from Isaiah lies in the clearness with which they state that only a remnant shall be saved. The passages quoted from Hosea do not specify; they stress only the contrast: non-people—my people; non-beloved—beloved. One might conclude that the Jews as such and in mass would return to God, but Isaiah says there shall be only a few.

Moreover, Isaiah cries concerning Israel: If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, (only) that which is left over will be saved; for as finishing and cutting it short will the Lord execute a reckoning on the earth. Also as Isaiah has stated before:

Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us seed,

As Sodom would we have become, and as to

Gomorrah would we have been likened.

Those who refer v. 25, 26 to Gentiles naturally make δέ adversative and say that Paul now turns to the Jews; but since both Hosea and Isaiah speak of the Jews, and the latter adds a vital point as to numbers, δέ = “moreover.” Only here is κράζει used for introducing a quotation from a prophet. This is probably done in order to bring out the emphasis which Isaiah himself put upon the small number. Ὑπέρ = “concerning” (R. 632). After a fashion Isa. 10:22 links into Hos. 1:10 which also speaks of the numbers being like the sands of the sea and recalls Gen. 32:17. But Hosea and Isaiah refer to the promise given in Genesis in quite a different way. The true Israelites shall, indeed, become as numerous as the sand of the sea (Hosea), and although the physical Israel became so numerous, of the physical Israel only “the leftover” shall be found among the true Israel and shall be saved.

Ἐάν with the subjunctive (protasis) and the future indicative (apodosis) are regular to express a condition of expectancy: in it such an increase is vividly contemplated by the prophet who, in spite of it, says that only τὸὑπόλειμμα, not a but the remnant, the leftover, shall be saved. The remnant is not some accidental leftover that accidentally escapes destruction; no, this is the specific remnant which God had in mind all along and because of which he did not at once wipe the whole nation from the face of the earth when it became ungodly.

Romans 9:28

28 Only this leftover, for God will, indeed, conclude matters with the Jews. Paul uses only a few of the words found in the LXX which made quite a botch of translating the Hebrew; but he does not himself translate the Hebrew, he abbreviates and gives its sense exactly and avoids the confusion of the LXX. Delitzsch renders the Hebrew: Vertilgung ist streng beschlossen, daherflutend Gerechtigkeit; denn Garaus und Strengbeschlossenes vollzieht der Allherr, Jehovah der Heerscharen, innerhalb des ganzen Landes. Paul’s participles condense this with precision; both are durative: the Lord “engaged in finishing and cutting short,” his reckoning will execute it on the earth.

Λόγον is to be construed with the participles as well as with the main verb but scarcely in the sense of “his promise” to the remnant, bringing that to an issue, which would require τὸνλόγον; rather in the sense of “affair” or preferably of “reckoning” as in Matt. 25:19, bringing that to an issue, winding up. Taking the Hebrew into consideration, which the careful translation of Delitzsch reproduces verbally, the sense is the reckoning of wrath and destruction which was fulfilled when God destroyed the Jewish nation in 70 A. D.

The general consensus is that Isa. 10:22 refers to the time of Hezekiah (Isa. 10:9–11), to the devastation wrought by the destruction of Samaria by the Assyrians under Shalmaneser; Delitzsch thinks of the earlier time of Ahaz and the campaign of Tiglathpileser. For the interpretation of Romans this difference of opinion in regard to the first and original application of Isaiah’s words is, of course, immaterial since Paul uses Isaiah’s words because of their application to the Jews of his own period. We may incidentally note that a son of Isaiah bore the name Shear jashub which signifies: “The remnant shall return,” Isa. 7:3.

Romans 9:29

29 Not as a mere duplication or an appendix is Isa. 1:9 added but as explaining how this remnant came to exist in Paul’s time. “Also as Isaiah has stated before” does not mean that he made this statement in an earlier chapter of his book, for this would be a trivial literary observation. Nor need we go to the length of claiming that Isa. 1:9 was a direct prophecy concerning the state of the Jews in Paul’s time. On the other hand, it should not be stated that Paul clothes his thought in the words of the prophet, and that these words referred only to an era that was past. The instances are numerous when history actually repeated itself, and when, under divine guidance, words describing past situations were divinely intended to describe future parallel situations, especially also the final climax. The idea is not that Isa. 1:9 happened to be couched in language that Paul could appropriate for his thought in Romans; the correspondence expressed by καθώς (compare ὡς in v. 25) is verbal because it is real—the realities correspond.

Paul shows from Isaiah’s prophecy that “seed” was left for Israel, that the word and promise did not fall by the way (v. 6). In his longsuffering God so dealt with the vessels of wrath already long fitted for complete destruction that he did not utterly consume these vessels, that he bore with them and thus managed to secure vessels of mercy (v. 22, 23). If God had made his final reckoning with the Jews in Isaiah’s time or even prior to this, no godly remnant could have been obtained from them at any future time, certainly not at Paul’s time. Judaism would have become a second Sodom, would have been made like to Gomorrah, not a soul would have been left after the cataclysm of punishment. But God restrained his wrath so that seed was left, ἐγκαταλείπω, “abandoned” by the swelling flood of (punitive) righteousness (the Hebrew of Isa. 10:22, translation by Delitzsch above). The torrent of wrath swept over the Jews but always abandoned some, and from these God’s mercy won the seed, the remnant, the leftover, and made this seed vessels of mercy.

The sentence is a regular condition of past unreality: εἰ with the aorist (protasis), two aorists with ἄν (double apodosis). The duplication of the latter makes this thought emphatic. “Seed” = “the remnant” mentioned in v. 7, 8, 27, and not, as some have thought, future reproduction. We should not overlook the weighty reference to Sodom and Gomorrah. Three types of the final judgment stand out in Scripture: the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the destruction of Jerusalem. The latter was impending when Paul wrote this letter. It would end the career of the Jews as the source of “seed” which this nation had been thus far.

To be sure, Jews are still being converted, but all is now reversed. Once Paul regularly started with the synagogue, won seed there, and then Gentile converts joined the Jewish converts. Now the few Jews who are still won join the Gentile churches. Once the question was how the Gentile converts should accommodate themselves to the Jewish converts (Acts 15); now nobody dreams of asking for the reverse, for we have long ceased even to think of such a thing as accommodation to Jewish converts; now the few Jewish converts live wholly as we of the Gentiles live and even think of nothing else. Had it not been for God’s longsuffering and his purpose of mercy regarding seed, Judaism would have been another Sodom that did not have a soul left.

The story of Judaism, viewed from the double angle of promise and mercy, has been concluded save for the final point which is faith. For all promise intends to kindle faith, to be received and retained by faith. All mercy is of the same nature, it is received only by the faith it awakens, and that faith trusts nothing else. So now the Jewish refusal of faith in the tragedy of its rejection is presented.

Gentile Faith—Jewish Unbelief

Romans 9:30

30 What, then, shall we say? namely when we look at this promise and this mercy, these blessed means with which God labored to win the Jews. What shall we say, you Romans and I, Paul, when we see the situation today, some few Jews and so many Gentiles in the Christian Church? Paul’s whole letter and its previous presentation of justification by faith alone have prepared for the one and only answer. This Paul now gives.

Paul does not make a deduction from what he has said in the whole chapter or in the last paragraph or in the last sentence in these verses. Nor should a new section be begun with v. 30 and extended through chapter 10. It is evident that 10:1 begins a new section. Then also promise and mercy discussed in chapter 9, call for a concluding word regarding faith, by which alone promise and faith are received and possessed. Some of the inadequacy of the exegesis of chapter 9, is due to the failure to note the pivotal promise and mercy, the one correlative of which is faith.*

The one answer is this: That Gentiles, who are not pursuing righteousness, captured righteousness, yea righteousness, that from faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not catch up with law. Why? Because (they did it) not from faith but as (they thought) from works. They stumbled against the stone of the stumbling even as it has been written (perfect tense: and is thus on record):

Lo, I am placing in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock-mass of (deadly) entrapment;

And he who believes on him shall not be put to shame.

It seems to be paradoxical that Gentiles (no article), who as such were not pursuing after righteousness, should capture righteousness while Israel (the nation), pursuing a law of righteousness, failed to attain to, i.e., catch up with, law. Since v. 31 is the main part of the answer, it is not an independent sentence but is still dependent on ὅτι. It is a correct characterization of paganism or Gentilism to say that its religion did not consist in an effort to attain righteousness. The worship of pagan gods does not rise to the pure, high, truly divine idea of God who declares a man righteous for the sake of his own works or for the sake of the works of a divine substitute. In some of its worship Greek and Roman paganism was filled with grossest immorality.

The verbs διώκειν and καταλαμβάνειν are matched: to pursue—to capture. Δικαιοσύνη, thrice repeated, is strongly emphatic. What righteousness Gentiles captured is stated, the article not only makes the phrase ἐκπίστεως attributive but also emphatic: “that from faith.” Regarding this phrase see 1:17 and note that Righteousness from Faith is the great theme of the entire epistle, which is here used to solve the paradox that Gentiles together with Jews are in the church, and that the bulk of Judaism is hardened and lost. Paul does not say τὴνδιὰπίστεως, “that through faith.” No, faith is not merely the means but the source (ἐκ). How this still frightens many who fear that it attributes too much to faith, and how this fright becomes pure joy when all synergistic conceptions of faith are thrown aside and faith is viewed only as ever holding Christ like a cup holding its contents, we have shown in connection with 1:17.

Romans 9:31

31 When Paul writes “from faith” he already supplies the key. He does so still more clearly when he says regarding Israel, not that it “pursued righteousness,” but more specifically, “pursued a law of righteousness.” For this “law” was the distinguishing religious mark of Judaism and, as conceived by Judaiism, the opposite of “from faith.” The absence of the articles in the expression νόμονδικαιοσύνης makes both nouns qualitative. The Mosaic law is referred to but in its quality of being a law of righteousness, the genitive is attributive: a law marked by, characterized by righteousness, namely by demanding perfect righteousness, for law always demands something. Now, despite all their pursuing, Israel never caught up with law. “Capture” would not be the correlative, but ἔφθασε, catch up with, attain, is. The sense is that “law” always left them far behind. This was not merely the Mosaic law because it was Mosaic or because it was peculiar in any way but because it was “law,” had the nature of “law.” Law merely demands and never gives.

Its demands exceed our ability to meet them, not only in one or in the other point, but in every point. All that “law” can do for sinners is to bring them “sin’s realization” (3:20), the conviction of utter failure to catch up with it. If the Gentiles had had the Mosaic law and had merely tried to catch up with its demands, they would have failed as utterly as did the Jews.

Romans 9:32

32 “Why” did Israel fail? Διατί asks for the reason; ἱνατί would ask for the purpose. Paul gives the answer in a nutshell with two phrases which need no verbs in the Greek although, when translating them into English, we must supply something. Both are ἐκ phrases like the one found in v. 31 and point, not merely to the means employed, but to the source, the fountain, the starting point, which goes deeper than the idea of means (διά). Ὡς marks the second phrase as the Jewish notion of the right source and starting point; “as” = with what they thought they should start. The Jews refused to let God, his Word, and even their law teach them that “from faith” alone righteousness before God comes, and they obdurately persisted in the fiction that it comes only “from works” (no article, qualitative). The more Jesus tried to teach them that faith was the only source, the more they clung to works and fought faith.

The fearful difference between faith and works is the fact that “faith,” being trust, relies in complete dependence on another, on God, on Christ, on the promise and the mercy, while “works” repudiate such dependence and rely on man’s own ability and attainment. Faith permits God to put it wholly and completely under obligation to himself; works not only repudiate this obligation to God but insist on putting God under obligation to the man who does the works, and the Jews tried to obligate God by means of even false works.

Here we have additional light on v. 11: “not from works (obligating God) but from him who calls (letting God obligate us by his call of grace).” Here is light, too, on the promise and the mercy, both of which obligate us because both are graciously extended without obligation to us on the part of God. The farther the Jews went with their “works,” the farther they got away from God who is reached only by faith, and when they had fully hardened themselves in the falsehood of “works,” God’s punitive and judicial hardening set in. Having sealed their own doom, God, too, sealed it for them.

Paul clothes this thought in Scriptural language: “They stumbled against the stone of the stumbling,” and then follows this with the Scripture itself. The Greek is stronger than the English: “they struck against the stone of striking against” or, “they smashed,” etc. And πρόσκομμα, with its suffix -μα, indicating result (R. 151) = the accomplished smashing, the genitive being attributive. This is not a stone over which one may merely stumble and recover oneself but one against which one runs with his entire body and smashes it entirely; it is like knocking one’s brains out. The stone itself is of such a size, and its very character produces such a dire result. The fact that Paul has Christ in mind is beyond question, Christ in his effect on unbelieving workers of law.

Romans 9:33

33 The formula of quotation is regular (as in v. 13), and the words are taken from Isa. 28:16, save for the fact that Isa. 8:14 furnishes the words “a stone of stumbling and a rock-mass of entrapment.” “Lo” is the Lord’s own exclamation because of what he is doing. Paul omits the details of which 1 Pet. 2:6–8 make use, that this is to be a cornerstone; he uses only the destructive effect implied in the figurative terms, for he has discussed the unbelief and the obduracy of Israel. The prophet doubles the figure and thus makes it stronger by the doubling, the second designation also brings out the idea of the full deadliness of this stone. It is no less than a πέτρα, a rock-mass, and not merely a πέτρος, a boulder. see Matt. 16:18 where both are used with a vital difference. M.-M. 511 finds the former used with reference to rocky ground. It is ground that is solid rock or a cliff of rock.

So also σκανδάλου brings out the idea of deadliness; for this is the crooked stick in a trap to which the bait is affixed and by which the trap is sprung which kills the victim. If we translate the metaphorical usage of this word “offense,” it is mortal offense from which recovery is impossible (see Matt. 18:7, etc.). The idea of luring or enticing is included, and thus this is deadly entrapment. Isa. 8:14 adds the figures of the gin and the snare. When we are explaining the combination “rock-mass of (deadly) entrapment” we may think of a rocky precipice over which one is lured to his doom; note that Jesus says in Matt. 21:44 that the rock-mass will fall on the man and grind him to powder!

To make sure that the application to Christ will be made Paul adds the words: “I lay in Zion.” These words are found in Isa. 28:16. The fact that Christ should become so deadly is God’s voluntas consequens, God’s purpose consequent to unbelief, and not his voluntas antecedens, his will considered as antecedent to any effect produced in man. God wills the salvation of all men because of universal and equal love, and this will is not divided as Calvinists assume.

Paul does not end this chapter and this section with the deadliness of unbelief but with the blessed effect of faith: “And he who believes on him shall not be put to shame.” This is the last line of Isa. 28:16. Because it is non-figurative this line interprets what precedes as meaning that he who runs foul of Christ in unbelief shall incur everlasting shame and contempt, Dan. 12:2. Trust in Christ will never be put to shame but will be gloriously justified; works end in the utter dismay of shame. Paul follows the LXX save that he writes οὐκαταισχυνθήσεται instead of οὐμὴκαταισχύνθη̣, the indicative instead of the subjunctive. The Hebrew has: “shall not flee.” Did the LXX have a Hebrew text that read yabish whereas our translation is made on the basis of a text that had yachish, or did the LXX have the latter text and translate it ad sensum or freely: he who flees doing so because he is ashamed? We need not decide the question; Paul used “shall not be ashamed” also in 10:12.

The reason, then, for the rejection of the bulk of the Jews, all of whom had the promise and the mercy, is plain. There was no fault in God but only Jewish repudiation of the promise and the mercy in obdurate unbelief.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Aufiage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.

L. Handbuch zum Neuen Testament Dritter Band. Die Briefe des Apostels Paulus. 1. An die Roemer. D. Hans Lietzmann. 2. Auflage.

• Sanday and Headlam, International Critical Commentary 269, etc., offer a history of the interpretation of 9:6–29, which, however, considers only the post-Reformation period.

M.-M The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.