Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJohn Bengel Commentary - Romans 9:14 - 9:14
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Rom 9:14. Τί οὖν, what then?) Can we then on this ground be accused of charging God with unrighteousness and iniquity by this assertion? By no means; for what we assert is the irrefragable assertion of God; see the following verse.-Μὴ γένοιτο, God forbid) The Jews thought, that they could by no means be rejected by God; that the Gentiles could by no means be received. As therefore an honest man acts even with greater severity [ἀποτομίᾳ] towards those who are harshly and spitefully importunate, than he really feels (that he may defend his own rights, and those of his patron, and may not at an unseasonable time betray and cast away his character for liberality) so Paul defends the power and justice of God against the Israelites, who trusted to their mere name and their own merits; and on this subject, he sometimes uses those appropriate phrases, to which he seems to have been accustomed in former times in the school of the Pharisees. This is his language: No man can prescribe anything to the Lord God, nor demand and somewhat insolently extort anything from Him as a debt, nor can he interdict Him in anything [which He pleases to do] or require a reason, why He shows Himself kind also to others [as well as to himself]. Therefore Paul somewhat abruptly checks by a rather severe answer the peevish and spiteful objectors. Luk 19:22-23, is a similar case. For no man is allowed to deal with God as if by virtue of a bond of agreement, [as if he were His creditor], but even if there were such a bond, God even deals more strictly with man [i.e. with a man of such a hireling spirit]; let the parable, Mat 20:13-15, which is quite parallel, be compared: I do thee no wrong, etc. There is therefore one meaning of Paul’s language, by which he gives an answer to those who contend for good works: another, of a milder description, in behalf of believers, lies hid under the veil of the words. In the Sacred Scriptures too, especially when we have come from the thesis [the proposition] to the hypothesis [that on which the proposition rests], the manners, τὰ ἤθη, as well as the reasonings, οἱ λόγοι, ought to be considered; and yet there can be no commentary so plain, which he, who contends for justification by good works, may more easily understand than the text of Paul.