Romans 11:33

re incorporated into the Christian Church with the believing Gentiles. Upon the case of these believing Jews he comments, Rom 11:1-7 . (2) As to the duration of it, it is not final and perpetual, for all Israel, or the nation of the Jews, which is now blinded, shall one day be saved or brought again into the kingdom or covenant of God. Upon the state of these blinded Jews he comments, Rom 11:7 to the end of the chapter. His design, in discoursing upon this subject, was not only to make the thing itself known, but partly to engage the attention of the unbelieving Jew; to conciliate his favor, and, if possible, to induce him to come into the Gospel scheme; and partly to dispose the Gentile Christians not to treat the Jews with contempt; (considering that they derived all their present blessings from the patriarchs, the ancestors of the Jewish nation, and were engrafted into the good olive tree, whence the Jews had been broken); and to admonish them to take warning by the fall of the Jews; to make a good improvement of their religious privileges, lest, through unbelief, any of them should relapse into heathenism, or perish finally at the last day. The thread of his discourse leads him into a general survey and comparison of the several dispensations of God towards the Gentiles and Jews; and he concludes this survey with adoration of the depths of the Divine knowledge and wisdom exercised in the various constitutions erected in the world, Rom 11:30-36 . Verse 1 I say then, hath God cast away his people? - Has he utterly and finally rejected them? for this is necessarily the apostle's meaning, and is the import of the Greek word απωσατο, which signifies to thrust or drive away, from απο, from, and ωθεω, to thrust or drive; has he thrust them off, and driven them eternally from him? God forbid - by no means. This rejection is neither universal nor final. For I also am an Israelite - I am a regular descendant from Abraham, through Israel or Jacob, and by his son Benjamin. And I stand in the Church of God, and in the peculiar covenant; for the rejection is only of the obstinate and disobedient; for those who believe on Christ, as I have done, are continued in the Church. Verse 2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew - God has not finally and irrecoverably rejected a people whom he has loved (or approved) so long, ὁν προεγνω, for this is evidently the meaning of the word in this place, as we have already seen, Rom 8:29 , and is a very general meaning of the original verb ידע yada in Hebrew and γινωσκω in Greek; as I have had often occasion to notice in different parts of this work, and what none will deny who consults the original. See Schleusner, Parkhust, etc. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith - Ουκ οιδατε, Do ye not know what the Scripture saith? The reference is to 1Kgs 19:10 , 1Kgs 19:14 . And the apostle's answer to the objecting Jew is to the following effect: God hath not universally thrust away his people, for whom in the promise to Abraham he intended, and to whom decreed, to grant his special favor and blessing; but the case is now much as it was in the days of Elijah: that prophet, in his addresses to God, made his complaint against Israel thus: - Verse 3 Lord, they have killed thy prophets - They will not permit any person to speak unto them in thy name; and they murder those who are faithful to the commission which they have received from thee. Digged down thine altars - They are profligate and profane beyond example, and retain not the slightest form of religion. I am left alone - There is no prophet besides myself left, and they seek to destroy me. Verse 4 But what saith the answer of God - The answer which God made assured him that there were seven thousand, that is, several or many thousands; for so we must understand the word seven, a certain for an uncertain number. These had continued faithful to God; but, because of Jezebel's persecution, they were obliged to conceal their attachment to the true religion; and God, in his providence, preserved them from her sanguinary rage. Who have not bowed the knee - Baal was the god of Jezebel; or, in other words, his worship was then the worship of the state; but there were several thousands of pious Israelites who had not acknowledged this idol, and did not partake in the idolatrous worship. Verse 5 Even so then at this present time - As in the present day the irreligion of the Jews is very great; yet there is a remnant, a considerable number, who have accepted of the grace of the Gospel. According to the election of grace - And these are saved just as God has saved all believers from the beginning; they are chosen by his grace, not on account of any worth or excellence in themselves, but through his goodness are they chosen to have a place in his Church, and continue to be his people, entitled to all the privileges of the new covenant. The election of grace simply signifies God's gracious design in sending the Christian system into the world, and saving under it all those who believe in Christ Jesus, and none else. Thus the believers in Christ are chosen to inherit the blessings of the Gospel, while those who seek justification by the works of the law are rejected. Verse 6 And if by grace - And let this very remnant of pious Jews, who have believed in Christ Jesus, know that they are brought in, precisely in the same way as God has brought in the Gentiles; the one having no more worthiness to plead than the other; both being brought in, and continued in by God's free grace, and not by any observance of the Mosaic law. And this is done according to the election of grace, or the rule of choosing any persons to be the people of God upon the footing of grace; which takes in all that believe in his Son Jesus Christ: some of the Jewish people did so believe; therefore those believing Jews are a remnant according to the election of grace. They are saved in that way in which alone God will save mankind. And if by grace - Then let these very persons remember, that their election and interest in the covenant of God has no connection with their old Jewish works; for were it of works, grace would lose its proper nature, and cease to be what it is - a free undeserved gift. But if it be of works - On the other hand, could it be made to appear that they are invested in these privileges of the kingdom of Christ only by the observance of the law of Moses, then Grace would be quite set aside; and if it were not, work, or the merit of obedience, would lose its proper nature, which excludes favor and free gift. But it is not, and cannot be, of Works; for those very Jews who now believe, and are happy in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, are so according to the election of grace, which does not mean a particular act of God's sovereignty, which has singled out some of the Jews who deserved to have been cast off as well as the rest; but it is that general scheme of grace, according to which God purposed to take into his Church and kingdom any, among either Jews or Gentiles, who should believe on Christ. And the remnant here mentioned were not selected from their countrymen by such a sovereign act of God's grace as might have taken in the whole if it had so pleased; but they were admitted into and received the privileges of the Messiah's kingdom, because they believed on the Lord Jesus, and received him as their only Savior; and thus came into that scheme of election which God had appointed. And we may observe, farther, that out of this election they as well as the others would have been excluded, had they like the rest remained in unbelief; and into this election of grace all the Jews, to a man, notwithstanding they were all sinners, would have been taken, had they believed in Christ Jesus. This is the true notion of the election of grace. See Taylor. Verse 7 What then? - What is the real state of the case before us? Israel - the body of the Jewish people, have not obtained that which they so earnestly desire, i.e. to be continued, as they have been hitherto, the peculiar people of God; but the election hath obtained it - as many of them as have believed in Jesus Christ, and accepted salvation through him: this is the grand scheme of the election by grace; God chooses to make those his peculiar people who believe in his Son, and none other shall enjoy the blessings of his kingdom. Those who would not receive him are blinded; they have shut their eyes against the light, and are in the very circumstances of those mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah, Isa 29:10 . Verse 8 God hath given them the spirit of slumber - As they had wilfully closed their eyes against the light, so God has, in judgment, given them up to the spirit of slumber. The very word and revelation of God, which should have awakened their consciences, and opened their eyes and ears, have had a very different effect; and because they did not receive the truth in the love thereof, that which would otherwise have been the savour of life unto life, has become the savour of death unto death; and this continues to the present day. Verse 9 And David saith, Let their table, etc. - And from their present disposition it is reasonable to conclude that the same evils will fall upon them as fell upon the disobedient in former times, as predicted by David, Psa 69:22 , Psa 69:23 , that their very blessings should become curses to them, and their temporal mercies be their only recompense; and yet even these earthly blessings, by not being enjoyed in the Lord, should be a stumbling block over which they should fall, and, instead of being a blessing, should be the means of their punishment. They would have a worldly Messiah, and therefore they rejected him whose kingdom was not of this world. Verse 10 Let their eyes be darkened - All these words are declarative, and not imprecatory. God declares what will be the case of such obstinate unbelievers; their table, their common providential blessings, will become a snare, a trap, a stumbling block, and the means of their punishment. Their eyes will be more and more darkened as they persist in their unbelief, and their back shall be bowed down always; far from becoming a great and powerful nation, they shall continue ever in a state of abject slavery and oppression, till they acknowledge Jesus as the promised Messiah, and submit to receive redemption in his blood. Verse 11 Have they stumbled that they should fall? - Have the Jews, now for their disobedience and unbelief rejected, so sinned against God as to be for ever put out of the reach of his mercy? By no means. Are they, as a nation, utterly irrecoverable? This is the sense of the place, and here the prophecy of the restoration of the Jewish nation commences. But rather through their fall salvation is come - The Church of God cannot fail; if the Jews have broken the everlasting covenant, Isa 24:5 , the Gentiles shall be taken into it; and this very circumstance shall be ultimately the means of exciting them to seek and claim a share in the blessings of the new covenant; and this is what the apostle terms provoking them to jealousy, i.e. exciting them to emulation, for so the word should be understood. We should observe here, that the fall of the Jews was not in itself the cause or reason of the calling of the Gentiles; for whether the Jews had stood or fallen, whether they had embraced or rejected the Gospel, it was the original purpose of God to take the Gentiles into the Church; for this was absolutely implied in the covenant made with Abraham: and it was in virtue of that covenant that the Gentiles were now called, and not Because of the unbelief of the Jews. And hence we see that their fall was not the necessary means of the salvation of the Gentiles; for certainly the unbelief of the Jews could never produce faith in the Gentiles. The simple state of the case is: the Jews, in the most obstinate and unprincipled manner, rejected Jesus Christ and the salvation offered them in his name; then the apostles turned to the Gentiles, and they heard and believed. The Jews themselves perceived that the Gentiles were to be put in possession of similar privileges to those which they, as the peculiar people of God, had enjoyed; and this they could not bear, and put forth all their strength in opposition and persecution. The calling of the Gentiles, which existed in the original purpose of God, became in a certain way accelerated by the unbelief of the Jews, through which they forfeited all their privileges, and fell from that state of glory and dignity in which they had been long placed as the peculiar people of God. See Taylor. Verse 12 Now if the fall of them - The English reader may imagine that, because fall is used in both these verses, the original word is the same. But their fall, and the fall of them, is παραπτωμα, the same word which we render offense, Rom 5:15 , Rom 5:17 , Rom 5:18 , and might be rendered lapse. Whereas that they should fall ( Rom 11:11 ) is, ινα πεσωσι. Now, πιπτω, to fall, is used in a sense so very emphatical as to signify being slain. So Homer, Il. viii., ver. 475. Ηματι τῳ, οτ' αν οἱ μεν επι πρυμνησι μαχωνται, Στεινει εν αινοτατῳ, περι Πατροκλοιο πεσοντος Ὡς γαρ θεσφατον εστι. And for Patroclus slain, the crowded hosts, In narrow space, shall at the ships contend. Such the divine decree. And again, Il. xi., ver. 84. Οφρα μεν ηως ην και αεξετο ἱερον ημαρ, Τοφρα μαλ' αμφοτερων βελε' ἡπτετο, πιπτε δε λαος. While morning lasted, and the light of day Increased, so long the weapons on both sides Flew in thick vollies; and the people fell. Cowper. It is well known, that to fall in battle means to be killed. It is in such a sense as this that St. Paul used the word fall, when he says, Have they stumbled that they should Fall? He means a fall quite destructive and ruinous; whereas by their fall, and the fall of them, he means no more than such a lapse as was recoverable; as in the case of Adam's offense. See Dr. Taylor. The riches of the world - If, in consequence of their unbelief, the riches of God's grace and goodness be poured out on the whole Gentile world, how much more shall that dispensation of grace and mercy enrich and aggrandize the Gentiles, which shall bring the whole body of the Jews to the faith of the Gospel! Here the apostle supposes, or rather predicts, that such a dispensation shall take place; and that, therefore, the Jews have not so stumbled as to be finally irrecoverable. Verse 13 This and the following verse should be read in a parenthesis. St. Paul, as the apostle of the Gentiles, wished to show them the high pitch of glory and blessedness to which they had been called, that they might have a due sense of God's mercy in calling them to such a state of salvation; and that they might be jealous over themselves, lest they should fall as the Jews had done before them: and he dwells particularly on the greatness of those privileges which the Gentiles had now received, that he might stir up the minds of his countrymen to emulation, and might be the means of saving some of them, as he states in the following verse. I magnify mine office - This is a very improper translation of την διακονιαν μου δοξαζω, which is, literally, I honor this my ministry. Dr. Taylor has justly observed that magnify, except when applied to the most High, carries with it, in our language, the idea of stretching beyond the bounds of truth; whereas the apostle simply means that he does justice to his ministry, by stating the glorious things which he was commissioned to preach among the Gentiles: blessings which the Jews by their obstinacy had forfeited. Verse 14 Might save some of them - And yet all these were among the reprobate, or rejected; however, the apostle supposed that none of them were irrecoverably shut out from the Divine favor; and that some of them, by his preaching, might be disposed to receive salvation by Christ Jesus. Verse 15 But life from the dead - If the rejection of the Jews became the occasion of our receiving the Gospel, so that we can even glory in our tribulations, though they themselves became chief instruments of our sufferings; yet so far must we feel from exulting over them that we should esteem their full conversion to God as great and choice a favor as we would the restoration of a most intimate friend to life, who had been at the gates of death. The restoration of the Jews to a state of favor with God to which the apostle refers, and which is too plainly intimated by the spirit of prophecy to admit of a doubt, will be a most striking event. Their being preserved as a distinct people is certainly a strong collateral proof that they shall once more be brought into the Church of God: and their conversion to Christianity will be an incontestable proof of the truth of Divine revelation; and doubtless will become the means of converting multitudes of deists, who will see the prophecies of God, which had been delivered so long before, so strikingly fulfilled in this great event. We need not wonder, if a whole nation should then be born as in a day. Verse 16 For if the first fruit be holy - As the consecrating the first fruits to God was the means of drawing down his blessing upon the rest, so the conversion of Abraham to the true faith, and the several Jews who have now embraced Christianity, are pledges that God will, in process of time, admit the whole Jewish nation into his favor again, so that they shall constitute a part of the visible Church of Christ. If the root be holy, so are the branches - The word holy in this verse is to be taken in that sense which it has so frequently in the Old and New Testaments, viz. consecrated, set apart to sacred uses. It must not be forgotten that the first converts to Christ were from among the Jews; these formed the root of the Christian Church: these were holy, ἁγιοι, consecrated to God, and those who among the Gentiles were converted by their means were also ἁγιοι, consecrated; but the chief reference is to the ancestors of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and, as these were devoted to God and received into his covenant, all their posterity, the branches which proceeded from this root, became entitled to the same privileges: and as the root still remains, and the branches also, the descendants from that root still remain: they still have a certain title to the blessings of the covenant; though, because of their obstinate unbelief, these blessings are suspended, as they cannot, even on the ground of the old covenant, enjoy these blessings but through faith: for it was when Abraham believed God that it was accounted to him for righteousness; and thus he became an heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Verse 17 And if some of the branches, etc. - If the present nation of the Jews, because of their unbelief, are cut off from the blessings of the Church of God, and the high honor and dignity of being his peculiar people; and thou, being a wild olive - ye Gentiles, being without the knowledge of the true God, and consequently bringing forth no fruits of righteousness, wert grafted in among them - are now inserted in the original stock, having been made partakers of the faith of Abraham, and consequently of his blessings; and enjoy, as the people did who sprang from him, the fatness of the olive tree - the promises made to the patriarchs, and the spiritual privileges of the Jewish Church: - Verse 18 Boast not against the branches - While you are ready to acknowledge that you were included in the covenant made with Abraham, and are now partakers of the same blessings with him, do not exult over, much less insult, the branches, his present descendants, whose place you now fill up, according to the election of grace: for remember, ye are not the root, nor do ye bear the root, but the root bears you. You have not been the means of deriving any blessing on the Jewish people; but through that very people, which you may be tempted to despise, all the blessing and excellencies which you enjoy have been communicated to you. Verse 19 Thou wilt say then, etc. - You may think that you have reason to exult over them; because it is a fact that God has been displeased with them, and therefore has broken them off; has cast them out of the Church, and taken you into it in their place. Verse 20 Well; because of unbelief, etc. - This statement is all true; but then, consider, why is it that they were cast out? Was it not because of their unbelief? And you stand by faith: you were made partakers of these blessings by faith; be not high-minded; let this humble, not exalt you in your own estimation; for if the blessings were received by faith, consequently not by works; and if not by works, you have no merit; and what you have received is through the mere mercy of God. They once stood by faith; they gave place to unbelief, and fell: you stand now by faith; but it is as possible for you to be unfaithful as it was for them, and consequently you may fall under the Divine displeasure, as they have done; be not high-minded, but fear; watch over yourselves with godly jealousy. Verse 21 For if God spared not the natural branches - If He, in his infinite justice and holiness, could not tolerate sin in the people whom he foreknew, whom he had so long loved, cherished, miraculously preserved and blessed; take heed lest he also spare not thee. Be convinced that the same righteous principle in him will cause him to act towards you as he has acted towards them, if you sin after the similitude of their transgression; and to this, self-sufficiency and self-confidence will soon lead you. Remember, therefore, the rock whence you were hewn, and the hole of the pit whence ye were digged. Depend incessantly on God's free grace, that ye may abide in his favor. Verse 22 Behold therefore the goodness - The exclamation, Behold the goodness of God! is frequent among the Jewish writers, when they wish to call the attention of men to particular displays of God's mercy, especially towards those who are singularly unworthy. See several instances in Schoettgen. And severity of God - As χρηστοτης, goodness, signifies the essential quality of the Divine nature, the fountain of all good to men and angels, so αποτομια, severity, as it is here translated, signifies that particular exercise of his goodness and holiness which leads him to sever from his mystical body whatsoever would injure, corrupt, or destroy it. The apostle in these verses uses a metaphor taken from engrafting, εγκεντρισις, from the verb εγκεντριζω, from εν, in, and κεντριζω, to puncture, because engrafting was frequently done by making a puncture in the bark of a tree, and then inserting a bud taken from another. This was the practice in the Roman agriculture, as we learn from Virgil, Georg. ii, ver. 73: - Nam qua se medio trudunt de cortice gemmae, Et tenues rumpunt tunicas, angustus in ipso Fit nodo sinus: huc aliena ex arbore germen Includunt, udoque docent inolescere libro. For where the tender rinds of trees disclose Their shooting gems, a swelling knot there grows; Just in that space a narrow slit we make, Then other buds from bearing trees we take; Inserted thus, the wounded rind we close, In whose moist womb the admitted infant grows. Dryden. In all countries the principle is the same, though the mode is various. The apostle, having adopted this metaphor as the best he could find to express that act of God's justice and mercy by which the Jews were rejected, and the Gentiles elected in their stead, and, in order to show that though the Jewish tree was cut down, or its branches lopped off, yet it was not rooted up, he informs the Gentile believers that, as it is customary to insert a good scion in a bad or useless stock, they who were bad, contrary to the custom in such cases, were grafted in a good stock, and their growth and fruitfulness proclaimed the excellence and vegetative life of the stock in which they were inserted. This was the goodness of the heavenly gardener to them; but it was severity, αποτομια, an act of excision to the Jews. The reader will observe that this term belongs to engrafting: often, in this operation, a part of a branch is cut off; in that part which remains in connection with the tree a little slit is made, and then a small twig or branch taken from another tree is, at its lower end, shaved thin, wedge-like, and then inserted in the cleft, after which the whole is tied together, clayed round, etc., and the bark unites to bark; and the stock and the scion become thus one tree, the juices of the whole stock circulating through the tubes of the newly-inserted twig; and thus both live, though the branch inserted bears a very different fruit from that which the parent stock bore. I have often performed this operation, and in this very way, with success: and I cannot conceive that the apostle could have chosen a more apt or more elegant metaphor. The Jewish tree does not bring forth proper fruit; but it will answer well to ingraft a proper fruit-bearing tree on. The Gentiles are a wild olive, which is a tree that bears no fruit; but it may be made to bear if grafted on the Jewish stock. Some of the branches were cut off, that the branches of this wild olive might be inserted: the act by which this insertion is made is termed αποτομια, goodness, benignity: the act by which the branches of the original stock are broken off is termed αποτομια, excision; from απο, from, and τεμνω, I cut, still keeping the metaphor taken from engrafting in view. Now, let the apostle's mode of reasoning be observed: the tree is cut down, or its branches lopped off; but the tree is not rooted up. The Jews have stumbled, but not so as to fall irrecoverably; for if they abide not still in unbelief, they shall be grafted in, Rom 11:23 . The Gentiles which are grafted in on these cut-off branches, like the scion inserted into another stock, partake of the root, which absorbs from the earth the nutritious juices, and the fatness of the Jewish tree, the blessings and privileges which that people have long enjoyed, in consequence of the Abrahamic covenant, Rom 11:17 ; the root, the Jewish covenant, bears them: not they the root, Rom 11:18 . As, therefore, the continuance of the Gentiles as the Church and people of God depends upon their interest in the Abrahamic covenant, the blessings of which they derive through the medium of the Jews, they should be grateful to God, and tolerant to those through whom they have received such blessings. And as, in the case of grafting, the prosperity of the engrafted scion depends on the existence of the parent stock, so the continuance of the Gentiles in this state of favor, (following the metaphor), in a certain way depends on the continuance of the Jewish people: and they are preserved, as so many scions which are in process of time to be engrafted on the Gentiles; and thus the Gentiles shall become the means of salvation to the Jews, as the Jews have been the means of salvation to the Gentiles. Following, therefore, the metaphor a little farther, which seems to have been so well chosen in all its parts, the continued existence of the Jews as a distinct people, together with the acknowledgment of the Gentiles, that they have derived their salvation and state of blessedness through them - of which Jesus Christ, born of the stock of David, is the author; and the Jewish Scriptures, which the Gentiles receive as inspired by God, are the evidence - then, the restoration of the Jews to the favor of God is a necessary consequence, and indeed seems to be the principal end in reference to which the apostle reasons. The Gentiles, however, are to take care that the restoration of the Jews be not at their expense; as their calling and election were at the expense of the Jews: the latter being cut off, that the former might be grafted in, Rom 11:19 . Of this there is no kind of necessity, for the original stock, the Abrahamic covenant, is sufficient to receive them all; and so Jews and Gentiles become one eternal flock, under one Bishop and Shepherd of all their souls. Verse 23 If they abide not in unbelief - So, we find that their rejection took place in consequence of their wilful obstinacy: and, that they may return into the fold, the door of which still stands open. For God is able to graft them in again - Fallen as they are and degraded, God can, in the course of his providence and mercy, restore them to all their forfeited privileges; and this will take place if they abide not in unbelief: which intimates that God has furnished them with all the power and means necessary for faith, and that they may believe on the Lord Jesus whenever they will. The veil now continues on their heart; but it is not a veil which God has spread there, but a veil occasioned by their own voluntary and obstinate unbelief: and, when they shall turn to the Lord, (Jesus), the veil shall be taken away. See what the apostle has said, 2Cor 3:6-18 . Verse 24 The olive tree, which is wild by nature - Which is κατα φυσιν, naturally, wild and barren; for that the wild olive bore no fruit is sufficiently evident from the testimony of the authors who have written on the subject; hence the proverb, Ακαρποτερος αγριππου· more unfruitful than the wild olive. Λακωνες γαρ αγριαν ελαιαν αγιππον καλουσι· for the Lacedemonians term the wild olive αγριππον. See Suidas. And hence Hesychius interprets αγριελαιος, the wild olive, (the word used here by St. Paul), by ακαρπος, unfruitful: and the reason given in Diogen. Proverb. Cent. ii. n. 63, is φυτον γαρ εστιν ὁ αγριππος ακαρπον· for the wild olive is an unfruitful tree. On this account the apostle very properly says: Thou wert cut, εκ της κατα φυσιν αγριελαιου, out of that olive which is uncultivated, because it is barren: the κατα φυσιν does not refer here to its being naturally barren; but to its being commonly or customarily permitted to remain so. And that this is the import of the phrase here is evident from the next clause of the verse. And wert grafted contrary to nature - Παρα φυσιν, contrary to all custom; for a scion taken from a barren or useless tree is scarcely ever known to be grafted into a good stock; but here the Gentiles, a fruitless and sinful race, are grafted on the ancient patriarchal stock. Now, if it was possible to effect such a change in the state and disposition of the Gentiles, who were αθεοι εν τῳ κοσμῳ, Eph 2:12 , without God, Atheists, in the world; how much more possible is it, speaking after the manner of men, to bring about a similar change in the Jews, who acknowledge the one, only, and true God, and receive the law and the prophets as a revelation from him. This seems to be the drift of the apostle's argument. Verse 25 I would not - that ye should be ignorant of this mystery - Mystery, μυστηριον, signifies any thing that is hidden or covered, or not fully made manifest. The Greek word seems to have been borrowed from the Hebrew מסתר mistar, from the root סתר sathar, to hide, conceal, etc.; though some derive it from μυεισθαι, to be initiated into sacred rites, from μυειν, to shut up. In the New Testament it signifies, generally, any thing or doctrine that has not, in former times, been fully known to men: or, something that has not been heard of, or which is so deep, profound, and difficult of comprehension, that it cannot be apprehended without special direction and instruction: here it signifies the doctrine of the future restoration of the Jews, not fully known in itself, and not at all known as to the time in which it will take place. In Rom 16:25 it means the Christian religion, not known till the advent of Christ. The apostle wished the Romans not to be ignorant of this mystery, viz. that such a thing was intended; and, in order to give them as much instruction as possible on this subject, he gives them some characteristic or sign of the times when it was to take place. Lest ye should be wise in your own conceits - It seems from this, and from other expressions in this epistle, that the converted Gentiles had not behaved toward the Jews with that decorum and propriety which the relation they bore to them required. In this chapter the apostle strongly guards them against giving way to such a disposition. Blindness in part is happened to Israel - Partial blindness, or blindness to a part of them; for they were not all unbelievers: several thousands of them had been converted to the Christian faith; though the body of the nation, and especially its rulers, civil and spiritual, continued opposed to Christ and his doctrine. Until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in - And this blindness will continue till the Church of the Gentiles be fully completed - till the Gospel be preached through all the nations of the earth, and multitudes of heathens every where embrace the faith. The words πληρωμα των εθνων may be borrowed from the מלא הגוים melo haggoyim, a multitude of nations, which the Septuagint translate by πληθος εθνων. By the πληρωμα, or fullness, a great multitude may be intended, which should be so dilated on every hand as to fill various regions. In this sense the words were understood by Solomon ben Melec, ארצות הגוים שימלאו מהם. The nations of the Gentiles shall be filled with them: the apostle, therefore, seems to give this sense of the mystery - that the Jews will continue in a state of blindness till such time as a multitude of nations, or Gentiles, shall be converted to the Christian faith; and the Jews, hearing of this, shall be excited, by a spirit of emulation, to examine and acknowledge the validity of the proofs of Christianity, and embrace the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ. We should not restrict the meaning of these words too much, by imagining, 1. That the fullness must necessarily mean all the nations of the universe, and all the individuals of those nations: probably, no more than a general spread of Christianity over many nations which are now under the influence of Pagan or Mohammedan superstition may be what is intended. 2. We must not suppose that the coming in here mentioned necessarily means, what most religious persons understand by conversion, a thorough change of the whole heart and the whole life: the acknowledgment of the Divine mission of our Lord, and a cordial embracing of the Christian religion, will sufficiently fulfill the apostle's words. If we wait for the conversion of the Jews till such a time as every Gentile and Mohammedan soul shall be, in this especial sense, converted to God, then - we shall wait for ever. Verse 26 And so all Israel shall be saved - Shall be brought into the way of salvation, by acknowledging the Messiah; for the word certainly does not mean eternal glory; for no man can conceive that a time will ever come in which every Jew then living, shall be taken to the kingdom of glory. The term saved, as applied to the Israelites in different parts of the Scripture, signifies no more than their being gathered out of the nations of the world, separated to God, and possessed of the high privilege of being his peculiar people. And we know that this is the meaning of the term, by finding it applied to the body of the Israelites when this alone was the sum of their state. See the Preface, Part II. As it is written - The apostle supports what he advances on this head by a quotation from Scripture, which, in the main, is taken from Isa 59:20 : The Deliverer shall come out of Zion, and turn away ungodliness from Jacob. Now this cannot be understood of the manifestation of Christ among the Jews; or of the multitudes which were converted before, at, and for some time after, the day of pentecost; for these times were all past when the apostle wrote this epistle, which was probably about the 57th or 58th year of our Lord; and, as no remarkable conversion of that people has since taken place, therefore the fulfillment of this prophecy is yet to take place. In what manner Christ is to come out of Zion, and in what way or by what means he is to turn away transgression from Jacob, we cannot tell; and to attempt to conjecture, when the time, occasion, means, etc., are all in mystery, would be more than reprehensible. Verse 27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins - The reader on referring to Isa 59:20 , Isa 59:21 , will find that the words of the original are here greatly abridged. They are the following: - And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord, My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever. For the manner in which St. Paul makes his quotation from Scripture, see the observations at the end of the preceding chapter, ( Rom 10:21 (note), Part I.). The whole of these two verses should be read in a parenthesis, as I have marked them in the text; for it is evident that the 25th verse should be immediately connected with the 28th. It may not be amiss to subjoin here a collection of those texts in the Old Testament that seem to point out a restoration of the Jewish commonwealth to a higher degree of excellence than it has yet attained. Isa 2:2-5 ; Isa 19:24 , Isa 19:25 ; Isa 25:6 , etc.; Isa 30:18 , Isa 30:19 , Isa 30:26 ; Isaiah 60:1-22; Isa 65:17-25 ; Jer 31:10-12 ; Jer 46:27 , Jer 46:28 ; Eze 20:34 , Eze 20:40 , etc.; Eze 28:25 , Eze 28:26 ; Eze 34:20 , etc.; Eze 36:8-16 ; Eze 37:21-28 ; Eze 39:25 , etc.; Joe 3:1 , Joe 3:2 , Joe 3:17 , Joe 3:20 , Joe 3:21 ; Amo 9:9-15 ; Oba 1:17 , Oba 1:21 ; Mic 4:3-7 ; Mic 7:18-20 ; Zep 3:19 , Zep 3:20 . Verse 28 As concerning the Gospel - The unbelieving Jews, with regard to the Gospel which they have rejected, are at present enemies to God, and aliens from his kingdom, under his Son Jesus Christ, on account of that extensive grace which has overturned their peculiarity, by admitting the Gentiles into his Church and family: but with regard to the original purpose of election, whereby they were chosen and separated from all the people of the earth to be the peculiar people of God, they are beloved for the fathers' sake; he has still favor in store for them on account of their forefathers the patriarchs. Verse 29 For the gifts and calling of God, etc. - The gifts which God has bestowed upon them, and the calling - the invitation, with which he has favored them he will never revoke. In reference to this point there is no change of mind in him; and therefore the possibility and certainty of their restoration to their original privileges, of being the people of God, of enjoying every spiritual blessing with the fullness of the Gentiles, may be both reasonably and safely inferred. Repentance, when applied to God, signifies simply change of purpose relative to some declarations made subject to certain conditions. See this fully explained and illustrated by himself, Jer 18:7-9 . Verse 30 For as ye in times past - The apostle pursues his argument in favor of the restoration of the Jews. As ye, Gentiles, in times past - for many ages back. Have not believed - Were in a state of alienation from God, yet not so as to be totally and for ever excluded, Have now obtained mercy - For ye are now taken into the kingdom of the Messiah; through their unbelief - by that method which, in destroying the Jewish peculiarity, and fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant, has occasioned the unbelief and obstinate opposition of the Jews. Verse 31 Even so have these also - In like manner the Jews are, through their infidelity, shut out of the kingdom of God: - That through your mercy - But this exclusion will not be everlasting; but this will serve to open a new scene when, through farther displays of mercy to you Gentiles, they also may obtain mercy - shall be received into the kingdom of God again; and this shall take place whenever they shall consent to acknowledge the Lord Jesus, and see it their privilege to be fellow heirs with the Gentiles of the grace of life. As sure, therefore, as the Jews were once in the kingdom, and the Gentiles were not; as sure as the Gentiles are now in the kingdom, and the Jews are not; so surely will the Jews be brought back into that kingdom. Verse 32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief - Συνεκλεισε γαρ ὁ Θεος, God hath shut or locked them all up under unbelief. This refers to the guilty state of both Jews and Gentiles. They had all broken God's law - the Jews, the written law; the Gentiles, the law written in their hearts; see Rom 1:19 , Rom 1:20 ; Rom 2:14 , Rom 2:15 . They are represented here as having been accused if their transgressions; tried at God's bar; found guilty on being tried; condemned to the death they had merited; remanded to prison, till the sovereign will, relative to their execution, should be announced; shut or locked up, under the jailer, unbelief; and there both continued in the same state, awaiting the execution of their sentence: but God, in his own compassion, moved by no merit in either party, caused a general pardon by the Gospel to be proclaimed to all. The Jews have refused to receive this pardon on the terms which God has proposed it, and therefore continue locked up under unbelief. The Gentiles have welcomed the offers of grace, and are delivered out of their prison. But, as the offers of mercy continue to be made to all indiscriminately, the time will come when the Jews, seeing the vast accession of the Gentile world to the kingdom of the Messiah, and the glorious privileges which they in consequence enjoy, shall also lay hold on the hope set before them, and thus become with the Gentiles one flock under one shepherd and bishop of all their souls. The same figure is used Gal 3:22 , Gal 3:23 . But the Scripture hath concluded συνεκλεισεν, locked up all under sin, that the promise, by faith of Christ Jesus, might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept, εφρουρουμεθα, we were guarded as in a strong hold, under the law; shut up, συγκεκλεισμενοι, locked up together unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. It is a fine and well chosen metaphor in both places, and forcibly expresses the guilty, helpless, wretched state of both Jews and Gentiles. Verse 33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! - This is a very proper conclusion of the whole preceding discourse. Wisdom may here refer to the designs of God; knowledge, to the means which he employs to accomplish these designs. The designs are the offspring of infinite wisdom, and therefore they are all right; the means are the most proper, as being the choice of an infinite knowledge that cannot err; we may safely credit the goodness of the design, founded in infinite wisdom; we may rely on the due accomplishment of the end, because the means are chosen and applied by infinite knowledge and skill. Verse 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? - Who can pretend to penetrate the counsels of God, or fathom the reasons of his conduct? His designs and his counsels are like himself, infinite; and, consequently, inscrutable. It is strange that, with such a scripture as this before their eyes, men should sit down and coolly and positively write about counsels and decrees of God formed from all eternity, of which they speak with as much confidence and decision as if they had formed a part of the council of the Most High, and had been with him in the beginning of his ways! A certain writer, (Mr. Perkins), after having entered into all these counsels, and drawn out his black-lined scheme of absolute and eternal reprobation, with all its causes and effects; and then his light-lined scheme of absolute and eternal Election, with all its causes and effects, all deduced in the most regular and graduated order, link by link; concludes with Rom 11:33 : O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how Unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways Past Finding Out! But this writer forgot that he had searched out God's judgments in the one case, and found out his ways in the other: and that he had given, as a proof of the success of his researches, a complete exhibition of the whole scheme! This conduct is worthy of more than mere reprehension; and yet he who differs from such opinions gives, in the apprehension of some, this proof of his being included in some of the links of the black list! We may rest with the conviction, that God is as merciful and good in all his ways, as he is wise and just. But as we cannot comprehend him, neither can we his operations, it is our place, who are the objects of his infinite mercy and kindness, to adore in silence, and to obey with alacrity and delight. Verse 35 Or, who hath first given to him - Who can pretend to have any demands upon God? To whom is he indebted? Have either Jews or Gentiles any right to his blessings? May not he bestow his favors as he pleases, and to whom he pleases? Does he do any injustice to the Jews in choosing the Gentiles! And was it because he was under obligation to the Gentiles that he has chosen them in the place of the Jews? Let him who has any claim on God prefer it; and he shall be compensated. But how can the Creator be indebted to the creature? How can the Cause be dependent on the effect? How can the Author of providence, and the Father of every good and perfect gift, be under obligation to them for whom he provides, and who are wholly dependent on his bounty? Verse 36 For of him, etc. - This is so far from being the case, for εξ αυτου, of him, as the original designer and author; and δι' αυτου, By him, as the prime and efficient cause; and εις αυτον, To him, as the ultimate end for the manifestation of his eternal glory and goodness, are all things in universal nature, through the whole compass of time and eternity. The Emperor Marcus Antoninus (εις ἑαυτον, lib. iv.) has a saying very much like this of St. Paul, which it is very probable he borrowed from this epistle to the Romans. Speaking of nature, whom he addresses as God, he says, Ω φυσις εκ σου παντα, εν σοι παντα, εις σε παντα; O, Nature! Of thee are all things; In thee are all things; To thee are all things. Several of the Gentile philosophers had expressions of the same import, as may be seen in Wetstein's quotations. To whom be glory - And let him have the praise of all his works, from the hearts and mouths of all his intelligent creatures, for ever - throughout all the generations of men. Amen - so be it! Let this be established for ever! I. The apostle considers the designs of God inscrutable, and his mode of governing the world incomprehensible. His designs, schemes, and ends are all infinite, and consequently unfathomable. It is impossible to account for the dispensations either of his justice or mercy. He does things under both these characters which far surpass the comprehension of men. But though his dispensations are a great deep, yet they are never self-contradictory: though they far surpass our reason, yet they never contradict reason; nor are they ever opposite to those ideas which God has implanted in man, of goodness, justice, mercy, and truth. But it is worthy of remark, that we can more easily account for the dispensations of his justice than we can for the dispensations of his mercy. We can every where see ten thousand reasons why he should display his justice; but scarcely can we find one reason why he should display his mercy. And yet, these displays of mercy for which we can scarcely find a reason, are infinitely greater and more numerous than his displays of justice, for which the reasons are, in a vast variety of cases, as obvious as they are multiplied. The sacrifice of Christ is certainly an infinite reason why God should extend, as he does, his mercy to all men; but Jesus Christ is the gift of God's love: who can account for the love that gave him to redeem a fallen world? The Jews have fallen under the displeasure of Divine justice: why they should be objects of this displeasure is at once seen in their ingratitude, disobedience, unbelief, and rebellion. But a most especial providence has watched over them, and preserved them in all their dispersions for 1700 years: who can account for this? Again, these very persons have a most positive promise of a future deliverance, both great and glorious: why should this be? The Gentile world was long left without a Divine revelation, while the Jews enjoyed one: who can account for this? The Jews are now cast out of favor, in a certain sense, and the reasons of it are sufficiently obvious; and the Gentiles, without any apparent reason, are taken into favor. In all these things his judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out! II. Once more: Let it be remarked that, although God is every where promising and bestowing the greatest and most ennobling privileges, together with an eternal and ineffable glory, for which we can give no reason but his own endless goodness, through the death of his Son; yet, in no case does he remove those privileges, nor exclude from this glory, but where the reasons are most obvious to the meanest capacity. III. This epistle has been thought by some to afford proofs that God, by an eternal decree, had predestinated to eternal perdition millions of millions of human souls before they had any existence, except in his own purpose, and for no other reason but his sovereign pleasure! But such a decree can be no more found in this book, than such a disposition in the mind of Him who is the perfection, as he is the model, of wisdom, goodness, justice, mercy, and truth. May God save the reader from profaning his name, by suppositions at once so monstrous and absurd! Introduction Such displays of God's mercy as Jews and Gentiles have received should induce them to consecrate themselves to Him; and not be conformed to the world, Rom 12:1 , Rom 12:2 . Christians are exhorted to think meanly of themselves, Rom 12:3 . And each to behave himself properly in the office which he has received from God, Rom 12:4-8 ; Various important moral duties recommended, Rom 12:9-18 . We must not avenge ourselves, but overcome evil with good, Rom 12:19-21 . The apostle having now finished the doctrinal part of this epistle, proceeds to the practical; and here it may be necessary to take a view of his arguments in the preceding chapters. The election, calling, and justification of the believing Gentiles, and their being admitted into the kingdom and covenant of God, and having an interest in all the privileges and honors of his children. (1.) That they have a clear and substantial title to all these he has proved in Romans 1, 2, and 3. (2.) That this right is set on the same footing with Abraham's title to the blessings of the covenant he proves Romans 6. (3.) That it gives us a title to privileges and blessings, as great as any the Jews could glory in, by virtue of that covenant, Rom 5:1-12 . (4.) He goes still higher, and shows that our being interested in the gift and grace of God in Christ Jesus is perfectly agreeable to the grace which he has bestowed upon all mankind, in delivering them from that death of the body brought on them by Adams' transgression, Rom 5:12-21 . (5.) He fully explains, both with regard to the Gentiles and Jews, the nature of the Gospel constitution in relation to its obligations to holiness, and the advantages it gives for encouragement, obedience, and support, under the severest trials and persecutions, Romans 6, 7, 8. (6.) As to the pretences of the Jews, that "God was bound by express promise to continue them as his only people for ever, and that this was directly inconsistent with the election and calling of the Gentiles, on the condition of faith alone;" he demonstrates that the rejection of the Jews is consistent with the truth of God's word, and with his righteousness: he shows the true cause and reason of their rejection, and concludes with an admirable discourse upon the extent and duration of it; which he closes with adoration of the Divine wisdom in its various dispensations, Romans 9, 10, 11. Thus, having cleared this important subject with surprising judgment, and the nicest art and skill in writing, he now proceeds, after his usual manner in his epistles and the apostolic method of preaching, to inculcate various Christian duties, and to exhort to that temper of mind and conduct of life which are suitable to the profession of the Gospel, and the enjoyment of its privileges. - Dr. Taylor. Verse 1 I beseech you therefore, brethren - This address is probably intended both for the Jews and the Gentiles; though some suppose that the Jews are addressed in the first verse, the Gentiles in the second. By the mercies of God! - Δια των οικτιρμων του Θεου· By the tender mercies or compassions of God, such as a tender father shows to his refractory children; who, on their humiliation, is easily persuaded to forgive their offenses. The word οικτιρμος comes from οικτος, compassion; and that from εικω, to yield; because he that has compassionate feelings is easily prevailed on to do a kindness, or remit an injury. That ye present your bodies - A metaphor taken from bringing sacrifices to the altar of God. The person offering picked out the choicest of his flock, brought it to the altar, and presented it there as an atonement for his sin. They are exhorted to give themselves up in the spirit of sacrifice; to be as wholly the Lord's property as the whole burnt-offering was, no part being devoted to any other use. A living sacrifice - In opposition to those dead sacrifices which they were in the habit of offering while in their Jewish state; and that they should have the lusts of the flesh mortified, that they might live to God. Holy - Without spot or blemish; referring still to the sacrifice required by the law.

rgely, through the greatest part of this chapter, upon reconciling the rejection of the Jews with the divine goodness, he concludes here with the acknowledgment and admiration of the divine wisdom and sovereignty in all this. Here the apostle does with great affection and awe adore, I. The secrecy of the divine counsels: O the depth! in these proceedings towards the Jews and Gentiles; or, in general, the whole mystery of the gospel, which we cannot fully comprehend.— The riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, the abundant instances of his wisdom and knowledge in contriving and carrying on the work of our redemption by Christ, a depth which the angels pry into, 1 Pet. i. 12 . Much more may it puzzle any human understanding to give an account of the methods, and reasons, and designs, and compass of it. Paul was as well acquainted with the mysteries of the kingdom of God as ever any mere man was; and yet he confesses himself at a loss in the contemplation, and, despairing to find the bottom, he humbly sits down at the brink, and adores the depth. Those that know most in this state of imperfection cannot but be most sensible of their own weakness and short-sightedness, and that after all their researches, and all their attainments in those researches, while they are here they cannot order their speech by reason of darkness. Praise is silent to thee, Ps. lxv. 1 .— The depth of the riches. Men's riches of all kinds are shallow, you may soon see the bottom; but God's riches are deep ( Ps. xxxvi. 6 ): Thy judgments are a great deep. There is not only depth in the divine counsels, but riches too, which denotes an abundance of that which is precious and valuable, so complete are the dimensions of the divine counsels; they have not only depth and height, but breadth and length ( Eph. iii. 18 ), and that passing knowledge, v. 19 .— Riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. His seeing all things by one clear, and certain, and infallible view—all things that are, or ever were, or ever shall be,—that all is naked and open before him: there is his knowledge. His ruling and ordering all things, directing and disposing them to his own glory, and bringing about his own purposes and counsels in all; this is his wisdom. And the vast extent of both these is such a depth as is past our fathoming, and we may soon lose ourselves in the contemplation of them. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, Ps. cxxxix. 6 . Compare v. 17, 18 .— How unsearchable are his judgments! that is, his counsels and purposes: and his ways, that is, the execution of these counsels and purposes. We know not what he designs. When the wheels are set in motion, and Providence has begun to work, yet we know not what he has in view; it is past finding out. This does not only overturn all our positive conclusions about the divine counsels, but it also checks all our curious enquiries. Secret things belong not to us, Deut. xxix. 29 . God's way is in the sea, Ps. lxxvii. 19 . Compare Job xxiii. 8, 9 ; Ps. xcvii. 2 . What he does we know not now, John xiii. 7 . We cannot give a reason of God's proceedings, nor by searching find out God. See Job v. 9 ; ix. 10 . The judgments of his mouth, and the way of our duty, blessed be God, are plain and easy, it is a high-way; but the judgments of his hands, and the ways of his providence, are dark and mysterious, which therefore we must not pry into, but silently adore and acquiesce in. The apostle speaks this especially with reference to that strange turn, the casting off of the Jews and the entertainment of the Gentiles, with a purpose to take in the Jews again in due time; these were strange proceedings, the choosing of some, the refusing of others, and neither according to the probabilities of human conjecture. Even so, Father, because it seemed good in thing eyes. These are methods unaccountable, concerning which we must say, O the depth! — Past finding out, anexichniastoi — cannot be traced. God leaves no prints nor footsteps behind him, does not make a path to shine after him; but his paths of providence are new every morning. He does not go the same way so often as to make a track of it. How little a portion is heard of him! Job xxvi. 14 . It follows ( v. 34 ), For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Is there any creature made of his cabinet-council, or laid, as Christ was, in the bosom of the Father? Is there any to whom he has imparted his counsels, or that is able, upon the view of his providences, to know the way that he takes? There is so vast a distance and disproportion between God and man, between the Creator and the creature, as for ever excludes the thought of such an intimacy and familiarity. The apostle makes the same challenge ( 1 Cor. ii. 16 ): For who hath known the mind of the Lord? And yet there he adds, But we have the mind of Christ, which intimates that through Christ true believers, who have his Spirit, know so much of the mind of God as is necessary to their happiness. He that knew the mind of the Lord has declared him, John i. 18 . And so, though we know not the mind of the Lord, yet, if we have the mind of Christ, we have enough. The secret of the Lord is with those that fear him, Ps. xxv. 14 . Shall I hide from Abraham the thing which I do? See John xv. 15 .— Or who has been his counsellor? He needs no counsellor, for he is infinitely wise; nor is any creature capable of being his counsellor; this would be like lighting a candle to the sun. This seems to refer to that scripture ( Isa. xl. 13, 14 ), Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or, being his counsellor, hath taught him? With whom took he counsel? &c. It is the substance of God's challenge to Job concerning the work of creation ( Job xxxviii. ), and is applicable to all the methods of his providence. It is nonsense for any man to prescribe to God, or to teach him how to govern the world. II. The sovereignty of the divine counsels. In all these things God acts as a free agent, does what he will, because he will, and gives not account of any of his matters ( Job xxiii. 13 ; xxxiii. 13 ), and yet there is no unrighteousness with him. To clear which, 1. He challenges any to prove God a debtor to him ( v. 35 ): Who hath first given to him? Who is there of all the creatures that can prove God is beholden to him? Whatever we do for him, or devote to him, it must be with that acknowledgment, which is for ever a bar to such demands ( 1 Chron. xxix. 14 ): Of thine own we have given thee. All the duties we can perform are not requitals, but rather restitutions. If any can prove that God is his debtor, the apostle here stands bound for the payment, and proclaims, in God's name, that payment is ready: It shall be recompensed to him again. It is certain God will let nobody lose by him; but never any one yet durst make a demand of this kind, or attempt to prove it. This is here suggested, (1.) To silence the clamours of the Jews. When God took away their visible church-privileges from them, he did but take his own: and may he not do what he will with his own—give or withhold his grace where and when he pleases? (2.) To silence the insultings of the Gentiles. When God sent the gospel among them, and gave so many of them grace and wisdom to accept of it, it was not because he owed them so much favour, or that they could challenge it as a debt, but of his own good pleasure. 2. He resolves all into the sovereignty of God ( v. 36 ): For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things, that is, God is all in all. All things in heaven and earth (especially those things which relate to our salvation, the things which belong to our peace) are of him by way of creation, through him by way of providential influence, that they may be to him in their final tendency and result. Of God as the spring and fountain of all, through Christ, God-man, as the conveyance, to God as the ultimate end. These three include, in general, all God's causal relations to his creatures: of him as the first efficient cause, through him as the supreme directing cause, to him as the ultimate final cause; for the Lord hath made all for himself, Rev. iv. 11 . If all be of him and through him, there is all the reason in the world that all should be to him and for him. It is a necessary circulation; if the rivers received their waters from the sea, they return them to the sea again, Eccl. i. 7 . To do all to the glory of God is to make a virtue of necessity; for all shall in the end be to him, whether we will or no. And so he concludes with a short doxology: To whom be glory for ever, Amen. God's universal agency as the first cause, the sovereign ruler, and the last end, ought to be the matter of our adoration. Thus all his works do praise him objectively; but his saints do bless him actively; they hand that praise to him which all the creatures do minister matter for, Ps. cxlv. 10 . Paul had been discoursing at large of the counsels of God concerning man, sifting the point with a great deal of accuracy; but, after all, he concludes with the acknowledgment of the divine sovereignty, as that into which all these things must be ultimately resolved, and in which alone the mind can safely and sweetly rest. This is, if not the scholastic way, yet the Christian way, of disputation. Whatever are the premises, let god's glory be the conclusion; especially when we come to talk of the divine counsels and actings, it is best for us to turn our arguments into awful and serious adorations. The glorified saints, that see furthest into these mysteries, never dispute, but praise to eternity. The apostle, having at large cleared and confirmed the prime fundamental doctrines of Christianity, comes in the next place to press the principal duties. We mistake our religion if we look upon it only as a system of notions and a guide to speculation. No, it is a practical religion, that tends to the right ordering of the conversation. It is designed not only to inform our judgments, but to reform our hearts and lives. From the method of the apostle's writing in this, as in some other of the epistles (as from the management of the principal ministers of state in Christ's kingdom) the stewards of the mysteries of God may

[[Luther published two sermons for Romans 11:33-36. One can be found in the electronic version in verses 33-34; the other in verses 35-36.]] Sermon for Trinity Sunday; Romans 11:33-36 1 This epistle is read today because the festival of Holy Trinity, or of the three persons of the Godhead--which is the prime, great, incomprehensible and chief article of faith--is observed on this day. The object of its observance is that, by the Word of God, this truth of the Godhead may be preserved among Christians, enabling them to know God as he would be known. For although Paul does not treat of that article in this epistle, but touches on it only in a few words in the conclusion, nevertheless he would teach that in our attempts to comprehend God we must not speculate and judge according to human wisdom, but in the light of the Word of God alone. For these divine truths are too far above the reach of reason ever to be comprehended and explored by the understanding of man. 2 And although I have, on other occasions, taught and written on this article fully and frequently enough, still I must say a few words in general concerning it here. True, it is not choice German, nor has it a pleasing sound, when we designate God by the word “Dreifaltigkeit” (nor is the Latin, Trinitas, more elegant); but since we have no better term, we must employ these. For, as I have said, this article is so far above the power of the human mind to grasp, or the tongue to express, that God, as the Father of his children, will pardon us when we stammer and lisp as best we can, if only our faith be pure and right. By this term, however, we would say that we believe the divine majesty to be three distinct persons of one true essence. 3 This is the revelation and knowledge Christians have of God: they not only know him to be one true God, who is independent of and over all creatures, and that there can be no more than this one true God, but they know also what this one true God in his essential, inscrutable essence is. 4 The reason and wisdom of man may go so far as to reach the conclusion, although feebly, that there must be one eternal divine being, who has created and who preserves and governs all things. Man sees such a beautiful and wonderful creation in the heavens and on the earth, one so wonderfully, regularly and securely preserved and ordered, that he must say: It is impossible that this came into existence by mere chance, or that it originated and controls itself; there must have been a Creator and Lord from whom all these things proceed and by whom they are governed. Thus God may be known by his creatures, as St. Paul says: “For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity.” Rom 1:20. This is (a posteriori) the knowledge that we have when we contemplate God from without, in his works and government; as one, looking upon a castle or house from without, would draw conclusions as to its lord or keeper. 5 But from within (a priori) no human wisdom has been able to conceive what God is in himself, or in his internal essence. Neither can anyone know or give information of it except it be revealed to him by the Holy Spirit. For no one knoweth, as Paul says ( I Cor 2:11 ), the things of man save the spirit of man which is in him; even so the things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God. From without, I may see what you do, but what your intentions are and what you think, I cannot see. Again, neither can you know what I think except I enable you to understand it by word or sign. Much less can we know what God, in his own inner and secret essence is, until the Holy Spirit, who searcheth and knoweth all things, yea, the deep things of God--as Paul says above--reveals it to us: as he does in the declaration of this article, in which he teaches us the existence in the divine majesty of the one undivided essence, but in such manner that there is, first, the person which is called the Father; and of him exists the second person called the Son, born from eternity; and proceeding from both these is the third, namely, the Holy Spirit. These three persons are not distinct from each other, as individual brothers or sisters are, but they have being in one and the same eternal, undivided and indivisible essence. 6 This, I say, is not discovered or attained to by human reason. It is revealed from heaven above. Therefore, only Christians can intelligently speak of what the Godhead essentially is, and of his outward manifestation to his creatures, and his will toward men concerning their salvation. For all this is imparted to them by the Holy Spirit, who reveals and proclaims it through the Word. 7 Those who have no such revelation, and who judge according to their own wisdom, such as the Jews, Turks and heathen, must consider the Christian's declaration the greatest error and rankest heresy; they must say that we Christians are mad and foolish in imagining that there are three Gods, when, according to all reason--yea, even according to the Word of God--there can be but one God. It would not be reasonable, they will say, that there should be more than one householder over the same house, more than one lord or sovereign over the same government; much less reasonably should more than one God reign over heaven and earth. They imagine that thus with their wisdom they have completely overthrown our faith and exposed it to the derision and scorn of all the world. As if we were all blockheads and egregious fools and could not see their logic as well as they! But, thank God, we have understanding equal to theirs, and can argue as convincingly, or more so, than they with their Alkoran and Talmud, that there is but the one God. 8 Further, we know, from the testimony of Holy Writ, that we cannot expound the mystery of these divine things by the speculations of reason and a pretense of great wisdom. To explain this, as well as all the articles of our faith, we must have a knowledge higher than any to which the understanding of man can attain. That knowledge of God which the heathen can perceive by reason or deduce from rational premises is but a small part of the knowledge that we should possess. The heathen Aristotle in his best book concludes from a passage in the wisest pagan poet, Homer: There can be no good government in which there is more than one lord; it results as where more than one master or mistress attempts to direct the household servants. So must there be but one lord and regent in every government. This is all rightly true. God has implanted such light and understanding in human nature for the purpose of giving a conception and an illustration of his divine office, the only Lord and Maker of all creatures. But, even knowing this, we have not yet searched out or fathomed the exalted, eternal, divine Godhead essence. For even though I have learned that there is an only divine majesty, who governs all things, I do not thereby know the inner workings of this divine. essence himself; this no one can tell me, except, as we have said, in so far as God himself reveals it in his Word. 9 Now we Christians have the Scriptures, which we know to be the Word of God. The Jews also have them, from whose fathers they have descended to us. From these, and from no other source, we have obtained all that is known of God and divine works, from the beginning of the world. Even among the Turks and the heathen, all their knowledge of God--excepting what is manifestly fable and fiction--came from the Scriptures. And our knowledge is confirmed and proven by great miracles, even to the present day. These Scriptures declare, concerning this article, that there is no God or divine being save this one alone. They not only manifest him to us from without, but they lead us into his inner essence, and show us that in him there are three persons; not three Gods or three different kinds of divinity, but the same undivided, divine essence. 10 Such a revelation is radiantly shed forth from the greatest of God's works, the declaration of his divine counsel and will. In that counsel and will it was decreed from all eternity, and, accordingly, was proclaimed in his promises, that his Son should become man and die to reconcile man to God. For in our dreadful fall into sin and death eternal, there was no way to save us excepting through an eternal person who had power over sin and death to destroy them, and to give us righteousness and everlasting life instead. This no angel or other creature could do; it must needs be done of God himself. Now, it could not be done by the person of the Father, who was to be reconciled, but it must be done by a second person, with whom this counsel was determined and through whom and for whose sake the reconciliation was to be brought about. 11 Here there are, therefore, two distinct persons, one of whom becomes reconciled, and the other is sent to reconcile and becomes man. The former is called the Father, being first in that he did not have his origin in any other; the latter is called the Son, being born of the Father from eternity. To this the Scriptures attest, for they make mention of God's Son; as, for instance, in Psalm 2:7: “Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee;” and again, Galatians 4:4: “But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son,” etc. From this it necessarily follows that the Son, who is spoken of as a person, must be distinct from the person of the Father. 12 Again, in the same manner, the Spirit of God is specifically and distinctively mentioned as a person sent or proceeding from God the Father and the Son; for instance, God says in Joel 2:28: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,” etc. Here a spirit is poured out who is God's, or a divine spirit, and who must be of the same essence, otherwise he could not say, “my Spirit;” and yet he must be a person other than he who sent him or who pours out. Again, because when he was sent he manifested himself, and appeared in his descent in a visible form, like that of a dove or tongues of fire, he must be distinct in person from both the Father and the Son. 13 But in this article of faith, in which we say that the Son of God became man and that he was of the same nature as we ourselves are, in order that he might redeem us from sin and death and give us eternal life without any merit or worthiness of our own, we give Jews and Turks no less occasion for laughter and mockery than when we speak of the three persons. For this is a more absurd assertion by far, in the estimation of human reason, which speculates in its Jewish and Turkish--yea, heathenish--teachings, on this wise: God is an only, almighty Lord of all, who has created all men and given them the law according to which they are to live; accordingly it follows that he will be merciful to the good and obedient, but will condemn and punish the disobedient. Therefore, he who does good works and guards himself against sin, God will reward. These are nothing but heathenish conclusions drawn from earthly, worldly experience and observation, as if God's government must be conducted on the same principles as that of a father among his children and domestics; for those are considered good rulers and masters who make a distinction with regard to their own interests. 14 Such heathen ideas of wisdom, holiness and service of God are taught and practiced by the Pope. And so we believed, myself and others, while we were under him, not knowing any better; otherwise we would have done and taught differently. And, in fact, he who has not this revelation and Word of God, can neither believe nor teach other than pagan doctrine. With such a faith, how much better were we than the heathen and Turks? Yea, how could we guard ourselves against any deception and lying nonsense that might be offered as good works and as service of God? Then we had to follow every impostor who came with his cowl and cord, as if Christ were represented in him; and we thought that in the observance of these things we would be saved. So the whole world was filled with naught but false service of God--which the Scriptures properly call idolatry--the product of human wisdom, which is so easily deceived by that which pretends to be a good work and to be obedience to God. For human wisdom knows no better; and how could it know better without the revelation? Even when the revelation was proclaimed, human wisdom would not heed it, but despised it and followed its own fancies. Hence it continued to be hidden and incomprehensible to such wisdom, as Saint Paul says: V.34. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord?” 15 But to us this counsel and mind of God in giving his Son to take upon himself our flesh, is revealed and declared. For from the Word of God we have the knowledge that no man of himself can be righteous before God; that our whole life and all our deeds are under wrath and condemnation, because we are wholly born in sin and by nature are disobedient to God; but if we would be delivered from sin and be saved, we must believe on this mediator, the Son of God, who has taken our sin and death upon himself, by his own blood and death rendering satisfaction, and has by his resurrection, delivered us. In this truth we will abide, regardless of the ridicule heaped upon us because of such faith, by heathen wisdom, which teaches that God rewards the pious. We understand that quite as well, if not better, than heathenism does. But in these mysteries we need a higher wisdom than our own minds have devised or can devise, a wisdom given to us by grace alone, through divine revelation. 16 For it is not our intention thus to pry into the counsel, thoughts and ways of God with our understanding and opinions, and to be his counselors, as they do who meddle in the affairs that are the prerogative of the Godhead, and who even dare, in the face of this passage of Saint Paul, to refuse to receive or learn of God, but would impart to him that for which he must recompense again. And thus they make gods after their own fancy, as many gods as they have thoughts; so that every shabby monastic cowl or self-appointed work, in their estimation, accomplishes as much and passes for as much as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in their eternal divine counsel, determine and accomplish. And they continue to be nothing but wearers of cowls and instructors in works, which works even they can do who know nothing of God and are manifestly scoundrels. And even though they have long been occupied with these things, they still do not know how matters stand between themselves and God. And it will ever be true as Saint Paul says: V.34. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor?” 17 For your own theories--which are no more than what anyone can arrive at, conjecture or conceive in his own mind, without divine revelation--are not a knowledge of the mind of God. And what does it avail if you are not able to say more than that God is merciful to the good and will punish the wicked? Who will assure you that you are good and that you are pleasing to God with your papistic, Turkish monkery and holiness? Is it all that is necessary to assert: God will reward with heaven such as are faithful to the order? No, dear brother, mere presumption, or an expression of your opinion, will not suffice here. I could do that as well as you. Indeed, each may devise his own peculiar idea; one a black, and another a gray monk's cowl. But we should hear and know what God's counsel is, what is his will and mind. This none can tell you by his own understanding, and no book on earth can teach it except the Scriptures. These God himself has given, and they make known to us that he has sent his Son into the world to redeem us from sin and the wrath of God, and that whosoever believes in him should have everlasting life. DIVINE MYSTERIES INEXPLICABLE TO REASON. 18 Behold, Paul's purpose in this epistle is to show Christians that these sublime and divine mysteries--that is, God's actual divine essence and his will, administration and works--are absolutely beyond all human thought, human understanding or wisdom; in short, that they are and ever will be incomprehensible, inscrutable and altogether hidden to human reason. When reason presumptuously undertakes to solve, to teach and explain these matters, the result is worthless, yea, utter darkness and deception. If anything is to be ascertained, it must be through revelation alone; that is, the Word of God, which was sent from heaven. 19 We do not apply these words of Paul to the question of divine predestination for every human being--who will be saved and who not. For into these things God would not have us curiously inquire. He has not given us any special revelation in regard to them, but refers all men here to the words of the Gospel. By them they are to be guided. He would have them hear and learn the Gospel, and believing in it they shall be saved. Therein have all the saints found comfort and assurance in regard to their election to eternal life; not in any special revelation in regard to their predestination, but in faith in Christ. Therefore, where Saint Paul treats of election, in the three chapters preceding this text, he would not have any to inquire or search out whether he has been predestinated or not; but he holds forth the Gospel and faith to all men. So he taught before, that we are saved through faith in Christ. He says ( Rom 10:8 ): “The word is nigh thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart,” and he explains himself by saying that this word should be proclaimed to all men, that they may believe what he says in verses 12 and 13: “For the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him: for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” 20 But he speaks of the marvelous ruling of God in the Church, according to which they who have the name and honor of being the people of God, and the Church--the people of Israel-- are rejected on account of their unbelief. Others, on the other hand, who formerly were not God's people, but were unbelieving, are now, since they have received the Gospel and believe in Christ, become the true Church in the sight of God, and are saved. Consequently it was on account of their own unbelief that the former were rejected. Then the grace and mercy of God in Christ was offered unto everlasting life, and without any merit of their own, to all such as were formerly in unbelief and sin, if only they would accept and believe it. He declares: “For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all.” Rom 11:32. 21 Hereupon follows the text, which Saint Paul begins with emotions of profound astonishment at the judgment and dealings of God in his Church, saying: V.33. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!” 22 Sublime are the thoughts and counsel of God, transcending by far the mind and comprehension of man, yea of all creatures, when he so richly pours forth his goodness and out of pure grace and mercy elects, as beneficiaries of that goodness, the poor and wretched and unworthy, who are concluded under sin--that is, those who acknowledge themselves before God to be guilty and deserving of everlasting wrath and perdition; when he does all this that they might know him in his real divine essence, and the sentiment of his heart--that through his Son he will give all who believe everlasting life. And, again, that they might know how he will reject and condemn the others--those who, in pride and security, boast of their own gifts and the fact that they are called the people of God in preference to all other nations; who boast that they have special promises, that they have the prophets, the fathers, etc.; who think that God will acknowledge no nation on earth but themselves as his people and his Church. He will reject them on account of their unbelief, in which they are fettered by the pride and imaginations of their own wisdom and holiness. 23 This is that rich, inexpressible, divine wisdom and knowledge which they possess who believe in Christ, and by which they are enabled to look into the depths and see what the purposes and thoughts of the divine heart are. True, in their weakness they cannot fully reach it; they only can apprehend it in the revealed Word, by faith, as in a glass or image, as Saint Paul says. 1 Cor 13:12. But to blind, unbelieving reason, divine wisdom will be foreign and hidden; nothing of it will enter reason's consciousness and thoughts, nor will reason desire more though a revelation be given. 24 That attitude Saint Paul encountered, especially when the arrogant Jews opposed themselves so sternly and stubbornly to the preaching of the Gospel. Filled with astonishment, he exclaimed: What shall I say more? I see indeed that it is but the deep unsearchable wisdom of God, his incomprehensible judgment, his inscrutable ways. So he says elsewhere: “But we speak God's wisdom in a mystery, even the wisdom that hath been hidden, which God foreordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the rulers of this world hath known.” I Cor 2:7-8. 25 This depth and richness of wisdom and knowledge, we Christians apprehend through faith; for, as Saint Paul says, it cannot be apprehended nor comprehended otherwise. Though the world will not do it, we will firmly believe that God is a true God and Lord, wise, just and gracious, whose riches and depth are ineffable. We will glorify him with our whole heart, therefore, as he ought justly to be praised and glorified by every creature, for his wonderful government of his Church, through his Word and revelation. Whosoever will hear and receive the same shall have light that will turn them to him and give them a knowledge of their salvation--an experience which others can never realize. And he is to be glorified because he manifests such unutterable goodness to all who are in sin and under God's wrath that he translates them, though they are unworthy and condemned, from the power of death and hell into the kingdom of eternal grace and life, if they will only seek grace and believe on Christ his Son. And, on the other hand, he is to be glorified because, as a just judge, he rightfully rejects and condemns those who will not believe the revelation and testimony of his will in his Son; who insist on, and boast of, their blind fancies, of their own wisdom and righteousness. Being accordingly deprived of such light, such grace and consolation, they must forever be separated and cast forth from the kingdom of God, regardless of what great name and fame may have been theirs when they were supposed to be the people and Church of God. 26 And such are God's unsearchable judgments and his ways past tracing out. Such are his government and works. For by “judgments” is meant that which in his view is right or wrong; what pleases or does not please him; what merits his praise or his censure; in short, what we should follow or avoid. Again, by “his ways” is meant that which he will manifest unto men and how he will deal with them. These things men cannot and would not discover by their own reason, nor search out by their own intellect, and never should they oppose their judgments or speculations to God. It is not for them to say what is right or wrong, whether an act or ruling is divine. They should humble themselves before him and acknowledge that they cannot understand, they cannot teach God in such matters; they should give him, as their God and Creator, the honor of better understanding himself and his purposes than do we poor, miserable worms. V.34, 35. “For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” 27 Paul states three propositions which take away from the world all its boasting concerning divine things: To know the mind of the Lord--what are his thoughts and purposes, or what he has determined within himself from eternity; to be his counselor--advising or showing him what to do and how to do it; to give to him--assisting him, by one's own ability, to accomplish his divine purpose. All this is impossible to human nature; it cannot know his mind, and how much less will it be able, with all of its wisdom and activity, to counsel him or give him anything. 28 Therefore, it is a shameful presumption on the part of the world to presume by its own powers to ascertain and discover God's essence, his will and works, and to counsel him as to his duties and pleasures; and shameful is it that it presumes with its works to have merited something from him, and to have earned a recompense; shameful presumption to expect to be honored as having achieved much for God's kingdom and for the Church-- strengthening and preserving them and filling heaven with holiness! 29 God must defeat minds so perverted. In his administration he must disregard their opinions and attempts. Thus, being made fools by their own wisdom, they may stumble and be offended at it. So would God, by showing us the realities, convince us of the futility of our own endeavors and lead us to acknowledge that we have not fathomed his mind, his counsel and will, and that we cannot counsel him. No man or angel has ever yet first thought out for God his counsel, or offered suggestion to him. Much less is he compelled to call us into counsel, or recompense us for anything we have given to him. THREE CLASSES OF PEOPLE. 30 There are three different kinds of people on earth, among whom Christians must live. The first of these are that rude class which is unconcerned about the nature of God and how he rules. They have no regard for God's Word. Their faith is only in their mammon and their own appetites. They think only of how they may live unto themselves, like swine in the sty. To such we need not preach anything of this text: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.” They would understand nothing of it though we were to preach it to them everlastingly. They would rather hear of the husks and swill with which they fill themselves. Therefore we will let them remain the swine that they are, and separated from others as they are. But it is exasperating to have to encounter them among Christians. 31 The second class are they who are still reasonable, concerning themselves, about God's purposes and their fulfilment, and how we may be saved. The heathen, and even we ourselves when under the papacy, contended, according to reason, over these things. Here is the beginning of all idolatry on earth; everyone teaches of God according to his own opinion. Mohammed says: He that believes his Koran and its doctrines is pleasing to God. A monk: He that is faithful to the order and its regulations will be saved. The Pope: He who observes his prescriptions and ritual, who makes a pilgrimage to the apostles at Rome, buys himself an indulgence; he has acquired the forgiveness of sins: but he who neglects it is under the wrath of God. These observances they call judgments and ways, controlling consciences and directing them to eternal life; and they imagine that they are God's judgments and ways. 32 On the contrary, the Word declares that God wants none of these things; that they are error and darkness and a vain service--idolatry, which he hates and which provokes him to the utmost. All must acknowledge who have practiced their own self-appointed observances for any length of time, that they have no real assurance that God will be gracious unto them and take pleasure in them because of their lives and observances. Yet, in their blind delusion and presumption, they go on in their vagaries till God touches their hearts by a revelation of his law; then, alarmed, they must admit that they have lived without a knowledge of God and of his will, and that they have no counsel or help unless they lay hold on the words of the Gospel of Christ. 33 We were all like that heretofore. Even I, a learned doctor of divinity, did not know better. I imagined that with my monk's cowl I was pleasing to God and on the way to heaven. I thought that I knew the mind of God well. I wanted to be his counselor, and to earn a recompense of him. But now I realize that my belief was false; it was blindness. I know that I must learn from his Word; that nothing else avails before him but faith in the crucified Christ, his Son; and that in such faith we must live, and do as our respective callings or positions require. Thus we may know right and wrong in God's sight; for our knowledge is not of our own invention, but we have it from revelation. By revelation God shows us his mind; as Saint Paul says ( I Cor 2:16 ): “We have the mind of Christ.” And again (verse 10): “But unto us God revealed them through the Spirit.” 34 The third class are those who transgress, having knowledge. They have the Word of revelation. I am not now speaking of those who knowingly persecute the truth--those of the first class, who are unconcerned about God--but I am speaking of those who recognize the revelation but are led by the devil to override it and go around it. They would conceive ways and judgments of God that he has not revealed. If they were Christians, they would be satisfied and thank God for having given us his Word, in which he shows us what is pleasing to him and how we may be saved. But instead, they allow themselves to be led by the devil to seek for other revelations and to speculate on what God in his invisible majesty is, and how he secretly governs the world, and what he has determined in regard to the future of each particular individual. And so presumptuous is our human nature that it would even interfere, with its wisdom, in God's judgment, and intrude into his most secret counsel, attempting to teach him and direct him. It was because of his arrogance that the devil was cast out into the abyss of hell; because he aspired to interference in the affairs of divine majesty, and would drag down man in the fall with himself. So did he cause man to fall in paradise, and so did he tempt the saints; and so he tempted Christ himself when he set him on the pinnacle of the temple. 35 Against this third class Saint Paul directs his words, in answer to the impudent questions of wise reason as to why God punished and rejected the Jews, as he did, and allowed the condemned heathen to come into the Gospel grace; why he so administers justice as to exalt the godless and allow the godly to suffer and be oppressed; why he elected Judas as an apostle and afterwards rejected him and accepted a murderer and malefactor. With these words Saint Paul would command the wise to cease their impertinent strivings after the things of the secret majesty, and to confine themselves to the revelation he has given us; for all such searching and prying will be in vain and harmful. Though you were to search forever you would nowhere attain the secrets of God's purposes, but would only risk your soul. 36 If you, therefore, would proceed wisely, you cannot do better than to be interested in the Word and in God's works. In them he has revealed himself, and in them he may be comprehended. For instance, he manifests his Son, Christ, to you, on the cross. This is the work of your redemption. In it you may truly apprehend God, and learn that he will not condemn you on account of your sins, if you believe, but will give you everlasting life. So Christ tells you: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Jn 3:16. In this Christ, says Saint Paul ( Col 2:3 ), are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. Herein you will have more than enough to learn, to study and ponder. You will marvel at the wonderful revelation of God, and you will learn to delight in and love him. It is a mine which can never be exhausted in this life by study, and in the contemplation of which, as Peter says ( I Pet 1:12 ), even the angels never tire, but find unceasing joy and pleasure. 37 I say this so that we may be prepared to instruct and direct those we may meet who, assailed and tormented by such thoughts of the devil, are led to tempt God. They are beguiled by the devil to search and grope, in his false ways, after what may be the intention of God concerning them, and thereby they are led into such apprehension and despair that they are unable to endure it. Such individuals must be reminded of these words, and be reproved by them. So did Paul reprove the Jews and cavilers of his day when they presumed to comprehend God with their wisdom, to instruct him as his counselors and masters, to deal with him directly themselves, without any mediator, and to render him such service that he would owe them a recompense. Nothing will come of such searching. Against its endeavors he has erected barriers that, with all your striving, you will never be able to overcome. And so infinite are his wisdom, his counsel and riches, that you will never be able to fathom nor exhaust them. You ought to rejoice that he gives you some knowledge of his omnipotence in his revelation, as follows: V.36. “For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory for ever.” 38 Why should we boast, he would say here, when everything that has being--and our own wisdom and capabilities, of course--did not originate itself but had its origin in him and must be preserved by him, must exist through him? He says ( Acts 17:28 ): “For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” And again ( Ps 100:3 ): “It is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” That is, what we are and are able to do, and the fact that we live and have peace and protection--in short, all the good or evil that happens to us--comes to pass not by accident or chance. It all proceeds from his divine counsel and good pleasure. He cares for us as his people and flock. He governs us and gives us good things. He aids and preserves us in every time of need. Therefore, all honor and glory are due to him alone, from his creatures. EVERYTHING IS OF GOD. 39 But when he says, Of him, through him, in him, are all things--he says in the simplest way that the beginning, middle and end is of God; that all creatures have their origin in him, also their growth and their limitations. To illustrate: Every little grain of corn has its beginning. A root springs from the dead seed in the ground; then a shoot comes forth and becomes a stalk, a leaflet, an ear of corn, and here it pauses, having the three parts it is intended to have. All creatures also have their beginning, their continuation and end, filling up the period of their existence. When this order ceases, every creature will cease to exist. That which has a beginning and grows but does not attain its end, does not reach perfection, is nothing. To sum it all up, everything must be of God. Nothing can exist without origin in him. Nothing that has come into being can continue to exist without him. He has not created the world as a carpenter builds a house and, departing, leaves it to stand as it may. God remains with and preserves all things which he has made; otherwise they would not continue to exist. 40 Saint Paul does not simply say--as he does elsewhere--Of him are all things. He adds two other assertions, making a triple expression, and then unites the three thoughts into one whole when he says, “To him be the glory for ever.” No doubt it was his intention therewith to convey the thought of this article of faith and to distinguish the three persons of the Godhead, even though he does not mention them by name, which is not necessary here. The ancient teachers also looked upon this passage as a testimony to the Holy Trinity. Their analysis was: All things are created by God the Father through the Son--even as he does all things through the Son--and are preserved, in God's good pleasure, through the Holy Spirit. So Paul is wont to say elsewhere; for example ( I Cor 8:6 ): “There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.” And concerning the Holy Spirit, Genesis 1:31 says: “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” 41 The Scriptures teach us that all creation is the work of one God, or the whole Godhead; and yet, inasmuch as they make a distinction between the three persons of the one Godhead, we may properly say that everything, had its origin, everything exists and continues, in the Father as the first person; through the Son, who is of the Father; and in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from both the Father and the Son; which three, nevertheless, are comprehended in the one undivided essence. 42 But how such a distinction of persons exists in the divine essence from eternity is a mystery which we shall and must leave unsolved. For we cannot, with our crude understanding, even fathom God's creatures; no creature is wise enough to understand these three parts of itself--the beginning, the middle and the end. Though they are distinct from each other, nevertheless they are so closely connected that we cannot with our physical senses separate one from the other. Who has ever been able to discover or explain the process by which a leaflet grows from a tree, or a tiny grain of corn becomes a root, or a cherry grows from the blossom to wood and kernel? Again, who can explain how the bodily members of a human being manifestly grow; what the sight of the eye is; how the tongue can make such a variety of sounds and words, which enter, with marvelous diversity, into so many ears and hearts? Much less are we able to analyze the inner workings of the mind--its thoughts, its meditations, its memory. Why, then, should we presume, with our reason, to compass and comprehend the eternal, invisible essence of God?

knowledge of God." The apostle has three subjects of admiration. Our translation, by the word "both" introduced here, confines it to two. The apostle wishes to express his admiration of the riches, and the wisdom, and the knowledge of God. So the Syriac, Arabic, etc. Our translation has followed the Latin Vulgate. The word depth is applied in the Scriptures to anything vast and incomprehensible. As the abyss or the ocean is unfathomable, so the word comes to denote that which words cannot express, or that which we cannot comprehend. Ps 36:6, "Thy judgments are a great deep." 1Cor 2:10, "The Spirit searcheth--the deep things of God." Rev 2:24, "The depths of Satan"--the deep, profound, cunning, and wicked plans of Satan. Riches. Rom 11:12. The word denotes the abundant blessings and mercies which had been conferred on sinful men by the gospel. These were vast and wonderful. The pardon of sin; the atonement; the hope of heaven; the peace of the gospel; all bestowed on the sinful, the poor, the wretched, and the dying, all bespeak the great mercy and rich grace of God. So every pardoned sinner may still exclaim. The grace of God which pardons him is felt to be indeed wonderful, and past comprehension. It is beyond the power of language to express; and all that the Christian can do, is to follow the example of the apostle, and sit down in profound admiration of the rich grace of God. The expression "the depth of the riches" is a Hebraism, meaning the deep or profound riches. The wisdom. Wisdom is the choice of the best means to accomplish the best ends. The end or design which God had in view was to bestow mercy on all; i.e., to save men by grace, and not by their own works, Rom 11:32. He intended to establish a glorious system that should present his mercy as the prominent attribute, standing out in living colours in all the scheme of salvation. This was to be alike shown in relation to Jews and Gentiles. The wonderful wisdom with which this was done is the object of the apostle's profound admiration. This wisdom was seen, (1.)in adapting the plan to the condition of man. All were sinners. The apostle in this epistle has fully shown that all had come short of the glory of God. Man had no power to save himself by his own wisdom. The Jews and Gentiles in different ways had sought to justify themselves, and had both failed. God had suffered both to make the experiment in the most favourable circumstances. He had left the world for four thousand years to make the trial, and then introduced the plan of Divine wisdom, just so as to meet the manifest wants and woes of men. (2.) This was shown in his making the Jews the occasion of spreading the system among the Gentiles. They were cast off, and rejected; but the God of wisdom had made even this an occasion of spreading his truth. (3.) The same wisdom was yet to be seen in his appointing the Gentiles to carry the gospel back to the Jews. Thus they were to be mutual aids; until all their interests should be blended, and the entire race should be united in the love of the same gospel, and the service of the same God and Saviour. When, therefore, this profound and wonderful plan is contemplated, and its history traced from the commencement to the end of time, no wonder that the apostle was fixed in admiration at the amazing wisdom of him who devised it, and who has made all events subservient to its establishment and spread among men. And knowledge. That is, foreknowledge, or omniscience. This knowledge was manifest, (1.) in the profound view of man, and acquaintance with all his wants and woes. (2.) In a view of the precise scheme that would be fitted to recover and save. (3.) In a view of the time and circumstances in which it would be best to introduce the scheme. (4.) In a discernment of the effect of the rejection of the Jews, and of the preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles. Who but God could see that such effects would follow the rejection of the Jews? Who but he could know that the gospel should yet prevail among all the nations? We have only to think of the changes in human affairs; the obstacles to the gospel; the difficulties to be surmounted; and the vast work yet to be done, to be amazed at the knowledge which can adapt such a scheme to men, and which can certainly predict its complete and final spread among all the families of man. How unsearchable. The word unsearchable means that which cannot be investigated or fully understood. His judgments. This word, in this place, evidently means his arrangement, his plan, or proceeding. It sometimes refers to laws; at other times to the decision or determination of God; at others to the inflictions of his justice. In this last sense it is now commonly used. But in the case before us, it means his arrangements for conferring the gospel on men. Comp. Ps 36:6, "His judgments are a great deep." His ways. The word rendered ways properly denotes a path, or road on which one travels. Hence it comes also to denote the course or manner of life in which one moves; or his principles, or morals; his doctrine or teaching, etc. Applied to God, it denotes his mode or manner of doing things; the order, etc., of his Divine providence; his movements, in his great plans, through the universe. Acts 13:10, "Wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" to oppose, or to render vain, his plan of guiding and saving man. Heb 3:10, "They have not known my ways." Ps 77:19, "Thy way is in the sea, thy footsteps are not known." Here it refers particularly to his way or plan of bringing all nations within the reach of his mercy in the gospel. Past finding out. Literally, which cannot be tracked or traced out. The footsteps cannot be followed. As if his path were in the sea, ( Ps 77:19 ) and the waves closed immediately, leaving no track, it cannot be followed or sought out. It is known that he has passed, but there is no way of tracing his goings. This is a beautiful and striking figure. It denotes that God's plans are deep, and beyond our comprehension. We can see the proofs that he is everywhere; but how it is, we cannot comprehend. We are permitted to see the vast movements around us; but the invisible hand we cannot see, nor trace the footsteps of that mighty God who performs his wonders on the ocean and on the land. (g) "unsearchable" Job 11:7, Ps 92:5 Verse 34. For who hath known, etc. This verse is a quotation, with a slight change, from Isa 40:13

O the depth of the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge of God - In the ninth chapter, St. Paul had sailed but in a narrow sea: now he is in the ocean. The depth of the riches is described, Ro 11:35 ; the depth of wisdom, Ro 11:34 ; the depth of knowledge, in the latter part of this verse. Wisdom directs all things to the best end; knowledge sees that end. How unsearchable are his judgments - With regard to unbelievers. His ways - With regard to believers. His ways are more upon a level; His judgments "a great deep." But even his ways we cannot trace.