Romans Commentary

Ver. 25. — For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, (lest ye should be wise in your own conceits,) that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.

Having in the two preceding verses exhibited first the possibility, and next the probability, of the restoration of the Jews, according to the order of God’s providence, the Apostle, in this and the following verses, down to the 28th, goes on to prove the certainty of the future conversion and restoration of Israel. He here addresses the Gentiles as his brethren, thus expressing his affection for them, and stimulates their attention, by declaring that he was about to reveal to them a mystery — a thing hitherto hidden or unknown. The restoration of the Jews is called a mystery, for though declared in the Scriptures, it was not understood. And in this mystery there were two parts, both of which are here unfolded, — first, that blindness is happened to Israel in part only; and, secondly, that this blindness should continue till the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. This mystery was opened to prevent the Gentiles from being wise in their own conceits, that is, from being puffed up on account of the preference they now enjoyed. Ignorance of the Scriptures is the cause of high-mindedness in Christians. They are often arrogant and contemptuous through want of knowledge. In the absence of real knowledge, they often suppose that they have a true understanding of things with which they are still unacquainted, and are thus vain and conceited. Blindness in part is happened to Israel. — This does not mean that their blindness was only partial, and limited in degree, for it was total and complete; but that it did not extend to all Israel, but only to a part, though indeed the far greater part. It is a consolation that the Jews are under no exclusion that forbids the preaching of the Gospel to them, and using every effort for their conversion. Though the national rejection will continue till the appointed time, yet individuals from among them may at any period be brought to the knowledge of God. This fact is of great importance. They are excluded only through unbelief, and this unbelief is not affirmed of all, but only of a part. Until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. — Here is the clearest attestation that the blindness of the Jews will yet cease, not only as to individuals, but as to the body. It is not stated at what time this will happen, but it is connected with the fullness of the Gentiles. The fullness of the Gentiles is the accession of the Gentiles to the body of Christ. Here we have another glorious truth presented for our consolation. The world has hitherto groaned under heathen and antichristian idolatry, but the time will come when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ; and this will be closely connected with the recovery of the Jews from their unbelief. This declaration of the Apostle coincides with that remarkable prediction of our blessed Lord: ‘Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.’

Ver. 26. — And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: Here the Apostle further unfolds the mystery of which he would not have his brethren to be ignorant. In the foregoing verse he had declared that blindness had come upon Israel — that blindness which he had before shown was inflicted on part of the Jewish nation by the judgment of God, verses 8-10, which would continue till a certain period was accomplished.

He now declares that at that period all Israel shall be saved. The rejection of Israel has been general, but at no period universal. This rejection is to continue till the fullness of the Gentiles shall come in. Then the people of Israel, as a body, shall be brought to the faith of the Gospel. Such expressions as that ‘all Israel shall be saved,’ are no doubt, in certain situations, capable of limitation; but as no Scripture demands any limitation of this expression, and as the opposition here stated is between a part and all, there is no warrant to make any exception, and with God this, like all other things, is possible. As it is written. — ’ Whether Isaiah, in 59:20,’ says Mr. Stuart, ‘had respect to the salvation of Gospel times, has been called in question. But the contest seems to me very clearly to indicate this.’ But why are we to rest our conviction on this point on our view of the connection? The Apostle’s quotation of the words is ground sufficient to bear the conclusion. This method of treating the Apostle’s quotations of prophecy should be most strenuously opposed. That it is prophecy ought to be rested on the ground of its being quoted as prophecy. ‘And even if he had respect to temporal deliverance,’ Mr. Stuart continues, ‘there can be no difficulty in the Apostle’s using his words as the vehicle of conveying his own thoughts with regard to spiritual deliverance.’ There is indeed no difficulty in supposing that the same prophecy may, in its primary sense, refer to a temporal deliverance, and in its secondary, to a spiritual deliverance. But there is a very great difficulty in supposing that the Apostle would cite a prophecy respecting a temporal deliverance, which had no reference to the deliverance of which he was speaking. This would be very puerile. It would be worse than puerile — it would be a perversion of Scripture. It would be employing a false argument. There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. — Mount Zion was the special residence of the God of Israel; and out of Zion was to go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, Isaiah 2:3. And though Israel has for a long time departed from Him, yet thither at length will the Redeemer return, and make His word and law powerful to restore them unto Himself. ‘He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth,’ Isaiah 11:12. The Deliverance, etc. — These words are quoted from Isaiah 59:20, ‘And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob.’ Here it is said that the Redeemer or Deliverer shall come to Zion; but if He come out of Zion He must have come to it previously; as it is said, Psalm 14:7, ‘Oh, that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion.’ Besides, it is added, He shall come, namely, out of Zion, to them who turn from transgression in Jacob; and such must have thus been turned by Him. We may be assured that the Apostle, speaking by the same Spirit as the Prophet, and directed by the Spirit to quote him, has substantially given the meaning of his words. If Jacob be turned away from transgression, it is this Deliverer who will accomplish the object.

In this prophecy, in the fifty-ninth chapter of Isaiah, God is represented as doing two things. One is, to reproach the Jews with the multitude and enormity of their transgressions; and the other, to promise to them the redemption of the Messiah, and by Him an everlasting covenant. When, therefore, all nations shall be given to the Messiah, and submit to His authority, the prophecies concerning Him will be fulfilled in their utmost extent, and His reign over all the earth will be established. After having subdued to Himself the whole of the Gentiles, He will not forget the family of Abraham, His friend, in whom, according to His promise, all the families of the earth were to be blessed. Jews and Gentiles shall be all united in Christ, and the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord. Then what is predicted by the Prophet Hosea 3:4, both concerning the present and future condition of the Jews, will all have been strikingly accomplished: ‘For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king; and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.’ ‘Oh, that the salvation of the Lord were come out of Zion! When the Lord bringeth back the captivity of His people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad,’ Psalm 14:7.

The comings of the Deliverer to Zion is not to be understood of any personal appearance. Jesus Christ has personally appeared once on earth, and He will appear the second time when He comes without sin unto salvation. The Scriptures, however, speak in different ways of His coming, though not in person; as of His coming to set up His kingdom, John 21:22; His coming at death and for judgment, Matthew 24:44-50; His coming for chastisement, Revelation 2:5; His coming in grace and love, John 14:23; Revelation 3:20. And at the appointed time He will come to Zion in His power by His Spirit.

Ver. 27. — For this is My covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

This refers to the verse which follows the one above quoted, Isaiah 59:21. ‘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.’ These words are addressed to the Redeemer, the Restorer of Israel, when God shall take away their sins. This gracious covenant is fully developed, Jeremiah 31:31-34; and again, 32:37-40, where the declaration referred to in the foregoing verse, of turning away ungodliness from Jacob, is more fully expressed. The Apostle grounds his conclusion from the prophecy on the fact that God in these words speaks of a time when He would take away the sins of Israel as a body, and so all Israel shall be saved.

The first characteristic of this covenant to Israel, as declared by Jeremiah, is, that it will be eternal, in opposition to the former covenant, which was temporary and was disannulled. ‘Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt: which My covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord.’ But why shall it be eternal?

Why shall it not be broken as the first covenant was? The reason is, ‘I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be My people.’ Here is a manifest distinction between this and the former covenant, in which the law was written outwardly in tables of stone; and therefore violated, as not being put in the hearts of the people. Under this covenant, too, it is said that they shall all know the Lord. He will fill their minds with the knowledge of Himself, by His Spirit communicated to them, which formerly He had not done. God, it is added, will also forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more. This is peculiar to the evangelical covenant, which provides a real atonement for sin, which could not be removed by the sacrifices under the law. In these respects the covenant here referred to is distinguished from the former covenant, and will prove effectual for the salvation of all Israel.

Immediately after the annunciation of this prophecy, it is solemnly and repeatedly averred that it shall be an unchangeable covenant; and that, sooner than Israel shall again be cut off, the most inviolable laws of God’s providence in the government of nature shall be revoked. ‘Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of Hosts is His name: If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for ever. Thus saith the Lord: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel, for all that they have done, saith the Lord.’

Israel, then, shall be restored to their own land, which God gave to Abraham for an everlasting possession. God hath said that He will make a full end of all the nations whither He had driven them, but He will not make a full end of them, Jeremiah 46:28. ‘Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: and David My servant shall be king over them; and they shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in My judgments, and observe My statutes and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob My servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, even they and their children for ever,’ Ezekiel 37:21,25. ‘And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God,’ Amos 9:15.

Ver. 28. — As concerning the Apostle, they are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.

The Apostle next obviates an objection that might be brought against the future recall of the Jews. The great body of the nation — all whom the Apostle declared to be judicially blinded — were now the enemies of God with respect — to the Gospel. They had rejected God’s message by His Son, and thus proved themselves His enemies while they called Him their God. The Gentiles, then, might object, How can the Jewish nation ever be grafted in again, seeing they have thus refused to listen to God’s message of reconciliation? This the Apostle answers: first, he grants that they were indeed enemies to God, and were dealt with as enemies for their contempt and disbelief of the Gospel. In the next place, he says that this was for the sake of the Gentiles, or on their account. The rejection of the Jews was, in the inscrutable counsels of Jehovah, connected with and overruled for the salvation of the Gentiles. Some understand the words, ‘for your sakes,’ as importing that the Jews were enemies to God because of His sending the Gospel to the Gentiles. This no doubt gave the Jews great offense; but it was before this event that they rejected and crucified Christ. But as touching the election. — The election here spoken of is not the election to eternal life, as that of the remnant according to the election of grace, verse 5. The Apostle is now speaking of the great body of the nation, called the ‘rest,’ verse 7, namely, those that were blinded, and the branches broken off, who, in respect of the Gospel, ‘were enemies’ to God. This election is of the nation of Israel to be the people of God, in that sense in which no other nation ever was; according to which they are so often called His people, 2 Samuel 7:23,24, etc. The election of Israel ‘after the flesh’ was typical of the election of the true Israel of God — even all believers, contracted with those who, although of Israel, were not Israel, ch. 9:6. God had chosen the Jews to be a special people unto Himself, Deuteronomy 7:6, ‘Thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto Himself.’ Yet they had not a heart to fear the Lord, Deuteronomy 5:29; and they belonged only to that covenant which made nothing perfect, according to which the law was given to them externally, and not written in their hearts, which consequently they braked Jeremiah 31:32.

On the ground of this national election of Israel, the Apostle Peter, when he called them to repentance, addressed them in these words: ‘Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children,’ Acts 2:38. And again, ‘Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Unto you first God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities,’ Acts 3:19,25,26. Beloved for the fathers’ sake — The election of the nation of Israel was made on account of their fathers, ‘Because He loved thy fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them.’ And again, ‘Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and chose their seed after them, even you, above all people, as it is this day,’ Deuteronomy 4:37, 10:15. It is immediately added, ‘Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiff-necked; ‘which proves that they were not Jews inwardly, Romans 2:28,29. Compared as they were to a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, their election as a nation was only external, as is verified throughout their whole history.

Ver. 29. — For the gifts and calling of God are to without repentance.

The Apostle here announces a general truth applicable to the case before him. The purposes of God are unchangeable, and His gifts and callings irrevocable, so that the nation of Israel cannot be deprived of what He engaged to do for them. What He has given them He will not withdraw, and His choice of them as His special people never can be altered. Calling is in this verse equivalent to election in the preceding. This election or calling as a nation cannot be revoked, and that national election was connected with and subservient to the election to eternal life of multitudes of their descendants, at the period when all Israel shall be saved. For this purpose it was, that in the destruction of Jerusalem the whole Jewish nation was not exterminated: ‘Except,’ said our blessed Lord, ‘those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened,’ Matthew 24:22. The term elect here cannot be applicable to those Jews who had then embraced the Gospel, for the tribulations of those days, even had they not been shortened, would not have caused their destruction, scattered as they were through many countries. It must refer to the elect of God in that future age, when all Israel shall be saved. It was for their sakes, who were to descend from the Jewish people, that the destruction of that people was limited, and for which God was pleased to preserve a part of them, and continues to preserve them to this day. The same reason, then, for this miraculous preservation, had likewise been given by the Prophet Isaiah, ‘thus saith the Lord, as the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it: so will I do for My servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of My mountains: and Mine elect shall inherit it, and My servants shall dwell there, Isaiah 65:8.

Ver. 30. — For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; Here, and in the following verse, the Apostle produces the last confirmation of his assertion that God had not cast away His people, which is further referred to in the 32nd verse, and is to this effect: as the Gentiles have experienced mercy after a long period of alienation from God, in like manner the Jews will at last receive mercy. Whether the original be translated have not obeyed or have not believed, it comes to the same thing. The unbelief or disobedience of the Gentiles in former times, after they lost the knowledge of the righteousness of God, preached to the world by Noah, 2 Peter 2:5, respected not His word, but the knowledge of God as revealed in His works. This unbelief or disobedience, during their heathenish state, although not so aggravated, is as properly a ground of their condemnation as the rejection of the Gospel by the Jews. It is on this account that the Apostle says, ch. 1:20, that they were without excuse; and, in ch. 2:12, that as many as have sinned without law (the written law) shall perish; and in the 14th and 15th verses, he assumes as the reason, that they had the work of the law — what it teaches — which they transgressed, written in their hearts. Yet have now obtained mercy. — The calling of the Gentiles out of the darkness and pollution of Paganism, was the result of the pure mercy of God. How different is the language of many on this subject! They seem to think that, as the heathens have not enjoyed the benefit of the revelation of grace, it would be unjust to condemn them for their transgressions. Through their unbelief — Nothing can be plainer than that in God’s plan it was necessary that the Jews should reject the Gospel, in order that it should be given to the Gentiles; yet why this was necessary we cannot tell. As far as appears to us, God might from the very first have made both Jews and Gentiles, to any extent, equally partakers of His grace, as He has promised He will do at last. Let us be satisfied that God has told us that a contrary mode of proceeding was necessary, without any vain attempts to develop the grounds of this necessity, which He Himself has not revealed.

The belief of many in the word of God appears not to go further than what they imagine they can account for. To anything beyond this they refuse to hearken. This is not faith.

Ver. 31. — Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.

God abandoned the Jews to unbelief, in order that their restoration might prove as signal an exhibition of mercy as the grace now bestowed on the idolatrous heathens. Had the Jews all received the Gospel at first, both they and the world at large would have been inclined to believe that they did not need the same conversion or the same grace as the Gentiles. This would have confirmed the view which they hold of themselves, as by hereditary descent from Abraham entitled to heaven, and the privileges of Messiah’s kingdom. But when they have crucified the Son of God, and continued in the most blasphemous rebellion against Him for so many hundred years, their conversion will display mercy as distinguished as the mercy that called the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, and were not seeking God. If the unbelief of the Jews was the occasion of showing mercy to the Gentiles, so the mercy shown to the Gentiles shall be the occasion of showing mercy to the Jews. Your mercy. The same mercy that saved the believing heathens, without any mixture of merit, shall save the Jews; and through the affect of that mercy shown to the Gentiles the Jews shall obtain mercy.

Ver. 32. — For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.

As the conclusion of the foregoing discussion respecting the restoration of the Jews, and the calling of the Gentiles, the Apostle here refers to the present state of the Jews, and the past state of the Gentiles. He declares the perversity and unbelief of all who have been saved, without exception, and shows that their salvation is solely the effect of the mercy of God.

God has shut them up in unbelief under the guilt and power of sin, like condemned criminals in prison, without any possibility of escaping, except by means of that salvation which, in His good pleasure, is provided for their deliverance. The Gentiles who believed had been formerly in this condition; now it was the case with the great body of the nation of the Jews.

God having thus been pleased alternately to shut up Jews and Gentiles in unbelief, it will thus appear that both the one and the other are called to the knowledge of Himself out of pure mercy. He had left men to walk in their own ways, having abandoned the nations of the earth to that state of blindness and misery in which they were plunged. During that period He only manifested Himself to the family of Abraham, and to small nation, by which He clearly testified that the communication which He chose still to hold with men proceeded solely from grace and His own good pleasure.

For if it had been in any manner due why was it not granted to all? Or if not granted to all, at least to the greater number, and not limited to so small a portion? Israel, however, forgot this distinguishing favor of God, and regarded it as a privilege necessarily attached to their descent from Abraham, not remembering that Abraham himself had been chosen from the mass of idolaters, and that they had been slaves in Egypt, addicted to the superstitions of that country. God was now pleased to shut up them also in unbelief, and to turn to those nations which neither knew Him nor were inquiring after Him. By doing so, His gratuitous mercy was revealed anew, and exhibited to men and angels. Besides this reason for the restriction of His peculiar revelation of grace at the beginning to the Israelites alone, it would seem that God purposed to allow the empire of Satan to attain all the power and extent of which it was capable, that, on the one hand, the greatness of human depravity might appear in all its direful effects, so that in the example of the miserable state of men thus abandoned to themselves, those whom God hath chosen may see, as in a faithful mirror, the hideousness of sin, as well as the necessity for the grace of God. On the other hand, by this means the work of the redemption of the Messiah is exalted, and its glory fully exhibited. At first God showed ‘His word unto Jacob, His statutes and His judgments unto Israel.’ And it is added, ‘He hath not dealt so with any nation; and as for His judgments, they have not known them,’ <19E719> Psalm 147:19,20.

The Jews were thus preserved from idolatry, into which the other nations had fallen; and although the covenant under which they had been placed was abolished, they still continued under its bondage, Galatians 4:25.

God Himself hardened their hearts, and abandoned them to their deep-rooted prejudices, since they had rejected the Messiah. In this condition they have continued attached to that covenant, shut up in their adherence to it in unbelief, and thus separated from all other nations. But though this be a punishment, it is overruled in the wisdom of God, so that in the end He may show mercy to the whole nation. Their house has been left unto them desolate; they have rejected Him who would have gathered them to Himself as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings. But even in the moment of this rejection, Jesus announced that the day will arrive when they shall say, ‘Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.’

God then shut up both Jews and Gentiles together in unbelief, that He might in saving them manifest to both the same mercy. Had not the Jews rejected the Gospel at first, their ultimate salvation would not have so eminently appeared to be the glorious result of the exercise of God’s sovereign mercy.

Ver. 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!

Ver. 34. — For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor?

Ver. 35. — Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?

Ver. 36. — For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.

Before passing onward to the practical conclusions which flow from the grand and peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, the Apostle pauses to contemplate the ground which he had traversed; and, looking back upon the whole, he exclaims with astonishment and admiration, ‘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!’ In thus concluding the discussion of those deep and awful subjects which, in the former part of this Epistle, had successively engaged his attention, Paul most emphatically intimates the impossibility of comprehending the infinitude of the Divine attributes. But far from judging, like many, that we have nothing to do with such mysteries as the sovereignty of God in justifying ‘the ungodly,’ and choosing or rejecting sinners according to His own good pleasure, he had delighted to expatiate on the glorious perfections of Jehovah as displayed in these doctrines. And as they bear most directly upon the state and security of Christians, he designates them in the beginning of the next chapter the ‘mercies of God,’ involving all the blessings in store for Jews and Gentiles, and constituting the foundation and support of all his exhortations to practical duty. He thus teaches that these doctrines are conducive in the highest degree to the advancement of holiness, and that in no respect do they interfere with the responsibility of man.

Paul, however, by no means denies that these great truths are ‘hard to be understood’ by men who, accounting themselves ‘wise and prudent,’ refuse to receive the kingdom of God as ‘little children.’ On the contrary, he intimates the absolute impossibility of giving utterance to the boundless and unfathomable incomprehensibility of the Divine attributes as manifested in God’s dealings with the children of men. How often does the profane ingenuity of man pretend to fathom, and sometimes even dares to arraign, the inscrutable ways of Jehovah! But what a contrast does the Apostle’s language, in these concluding verses of this chapter, present to the vain and presumptuous speculations of some interpreters of Scripture!

Multitudes receive the testimony of God only so far as they can satisfactorily account for all the reasons and grounds of His conduct, when measured according to the petty scale of their limited capacity. How unbecoming in such a creature as man! Shall he who is but ‘of yesterday,’ and ‘knows nothing,’ who is born ‘like a wild ass’s colt,’ pretend to penetrate the counsels of the Omniscient!

If this great Apostle, enjoying as he did such unexampled privileges, favored as he was with such ‘abundance of revelations,’ and writing under the dictation of the Holy Ghost, was thus compelled to confess that the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God were unsearchable, how vain and idle are all the speculations and conjectures on the subject of this world’s wisdom! It is not difficult for one man to judge of the plans and designs of another. But the judgments of the Lord must, like their Author, be infinite, and consequently can neither be measured by a finite capacity, nor ascertained further than they are revealed from the fountain of light.

The Lord knows the hearts of His creatures; but the combined intellect of men and angels would be alike insufficient to penetrate the secrets of Deity The wisest of men need counsel from others. The angels, we are told, ‘desire to look into’ the works of their Creator, in order to make new acquisitions of knowledge. But the majesty of God stands alone in the universe. He needs no counselor; and neither in the work of creation, nor in the still more astonishing scheme of redemption, does He take counsel.

From the various ways in which men explain the revelation of God’s salvation of sinners, we see what advice they would have given had they been permitted to assist in devising a plan for the operation of Divine mercy. God’s plan of redemption is so deep and peculiar to Himself, that man does not comprehend it, even when it is presented to his view, unless the eyes of his understanding are enlightened by the Holy Spirit of God.

Well, then, may the Apostle exclaim, in the contemplation of the majesty of God, and the unsearchable riches of His wisdom and knowledge, Who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor?

The same question substantially was put to Job, when the Lord answered him out of the whirlwind, and all the proud imaginations which he had conceived, in the agitation of his spirit, were in a moment humbled in the dust. ‘I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore I have uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.’ To the same effect also, the Psalmist David, in the <19D101> 131st Psalm, appeals to the Lord that he received the kingdom of God as a little child, and was not proudly attempting to scan the secret counsels of Jehovah ‘Lord,’ he exclaims, ‘my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me. Surely I have behaved and quieted myself as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child. Let Israel hope in the Lord from henceforth and for ever.’ The Apostle, in addition to what he had declared of the unsearchableness of the Lord’s judgments, adds, as another reason why man should cease proudly to challenge the proceedings of his Maker, Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? He thus at once declares the spring of all our knowledge, and consequently our inability to pursue our inquiries beyond the bounds of revelation; while at the same time he again reminds us how utterly impossible it is for a creature to bring his Creator under obligations. How absurd, how impious, must it then be to speak of the merit of our good works!

The conclusion to which the Apostle is conducted by all these considerations, is expressed in the last verse of the chapter. For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. — Here we have the grand truth which lies at the foundation of all religion.

All things are of God, for He is the Author of all; His will is the origin of all existence. All things are through Him, for all things are created by Him as the grand agent. All things are likewise to Him for all things tend to his glory as their final end.

Philosophers represent the communication of happiness as the chief end of man and of creation. But the Scriptures uniformly declare the glory of the Creator as the paramount object of all that takes place throughout the vast limits of the universe. To this the entrance of sin among angels and men is no exception. In itself sin is an affront to the majesty of God. But there can be no doubt that the results of sin, as well as of all the evil we behold in the world, shall signally enhance the glory of the Divine character. It was necessary in order to show God to be what He is. Had sin never existed, there would have been no opportunity of manifesting the righteous displeasure of God against it, and His justice in punishing it; nor of displaying His wonderful power in turning to His glory that which in itself is a dishonor to Him. This is the very reason given by the Apostle for God’s suffering the vessels of wrath. ‘What if God, willing to show His wrath, and make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.’

That God not only permitted, but willed the entrance of sin among men, is clear from the very creation of the world, and its adaptation to illustrate the work of redemption. From the nineteenth Psalm, there can be no doubt that the sun of the firmament was, from his first dawn, a glorious type of the Sun of Righteousness; and in his manner of enlightening the earth, a figure of Him who is the light of the world, as well as of the course and progress of the Gospel. The resting from the work of creation, and the first Sabbath, were calculated to shadow the rest of the Lord Jesus from the more important work of redemption, and the glorious and everlasting rest which remaineth for the people of God. The formation of Adam and Eve, and the relation of marriage, most evidently were regulated with reference to the future relation of Christ and His Church, Ephesians 5:32. Redemption, then, was in the view of God in the creation of man.

From all eternity it was purposed by Him ‘who created all things by Jesus Christ: to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by (means of) the Church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord,’ Ephesians 3:9. Grace was given to His people in Christ Jesus, and eternal life was promised by God that cannot lie, before the world began, 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2.

It is not possible that God would have purposed the entrance of sin, had He not been able to turn it to His glory. No man would act in the way in which many consider God in this matter to have acted. Could any man foresee that what he was about to do would turn to his dishonor and injury, and would he not avoid it? And shall God will and foresee that sin should enter, and shall He permit its entrance, if it is ultimately to prove dishonorable to His character? To suppose that there were innumerable plans of creation present to the mind of the Creator, that each of them had advantages and disadvantages, and that God chose that which upon the whole was best, is nothing but disguised Atheism. This supposes that the Creator is neither all-wise nor all-powerful.

The universal apostasy of the nations of the earth from the worship of God, and the present apostasy of the Jews, are things apparently dishonorable to God, and which man with God’s power would not have permitted. But both are according to the counsel of God, and will redound to His glory. We cannot understand how this can be so. It is to us a depth unfathomable; but it is a truth which no Christian should find difficult to believe, because it is plainly testified in the word of God. The Apostle wonders at it, but does not pretend to explain it. His language in closing this subject is a recognition that the ways of Jehovah are beyond the grasp of the human intellect. ‘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!’

Though Satan, then, is the God of this world, yet God is glorified in all the evil that Satan has introduced. In every part of Scripture, Jehovah is seen to be glorified: in His judgments as well as in His grace, in His wrath as well as in His mercy, in those who are lost as well as in those who are saved. However disagreeable this may be to the mind of the natural man, it is truly reasonable. Can there be a higher end than the glory of the Divine character? And can man, who is a fallen and lost creature, share with His offended Sovereign in the glory of his recovery? Such a thought is as incongruous as it is unscriptural. If there be hope for the guilty, if there be recovery to any from the ruin of the fall, it is the voice of reason, properly exercised, as well as of the Divine word, that it must come from God Himself.

The practical influence of the truth contained in these concluding verses is illustrated by the following extract from the Author’s ‘Letter, addressed, in 1824, to Mr. Cheneviere, the well-known Socinian, and yet Pastor and Professor of Divinity at Geneva.’ ‘There was nothing brought under the consideration of the students of divinity who attended me at Geneva, which appeared to contribute so effectually to overthrow their false system of religion, founded on philosophy and vain deceit, as the sublime view of the majesty of God presented in the four concluding verses of this part of the Epistle. Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.

Here God is described as His own last end in everything that He does.

Judging of God as such an one as themselves, they were at first startled at the idea that He must love Himself supremely, infinitely more than the whole universe, and consequently must prefer His own glory to everything besides. But when they were reminded that God in reality is infinitely more amiable and more valuable than the whole creation, and that consequently, if He views things as they really are, He must regard Himself as infinitely worthy of being more valued and loved, they saw that this truth was incontrovertible. Their attention was at the same time directed to numerous passages of Scripture, which assert that the manifestation of the glory of God is the great end of creation that He has Himself chiefly in view in all His works and dispensations, and that it is a purpose in which He requires that all His intelligent creatures should acquiesce, and seek and promote it as their first and paramount duty.

Passages to this effect, both in the Old and New Testament, far exceed in number what any one who has not examined the subject is at all aware of.’