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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Romans 9:14 - 9:14
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14–33. This choice of GOD is not unjust, because it flows from His Mercy, not from man’s disposition or efforts. (17) Pharaoh himself was raised up to give an instance of GOD’S power and to make wide proclamation of His Name: GOD’S will works whether in mercy or in hardening. (19) If you ask what room is there for moral blame, seeing that GOD’S will is irresistible? I reply, that man has no right to protest against GOD the conditions of his nature: any more than the vessel can quarrel with the maker for the uses to which it is destined. (22) It was GOD’S will to make plain the conditions which should incur His wrath and to bring home to man’s knowledge His power; in doing so He bore long with those who served only to exhibit wrath and were formed by character only for destruction, His patience serving to reveal the great stores of revelation of Himself opened out to such as served to exhibit His mercy, formed and prepared for such revelation, men called now in our persons not only from Jews but also from Gentiles. (25) This action of GOD’S will is witnessed by the prophets both as regards the call of Gentiles (27) and as regards the call of only a remnant of Israel, representing the true Israel. (30) What then is the conclusion? That the righteousness (which is the purpose of GOD for man) is found among Gentiles, who for so long made no effort to attain it, while Israel missed even the law of righteousness at which they aimed. (32) And the reason is, that they neglected the one condition of attainment, namely faith: stumbling on the very rock of which the prophet spoke.
S. Paul is here defending his position, that the true people of GOD, the true Israel, now consists of a remnant of Israel and an incoming of Gentiles, both accepted on the ground of faith, against the objection that this involves an incredible rejection of the main stock of Israel: he shows how such an event was definitely contemplated by the prophets (25–33), and justifies it by the consideration of GOD’S use of man for the execution of His purpose. Man is made for such use; and according to his character he serves that use, either negatively by showing the awful consequences of GOD’S wrath upon sin (cf. Rom 1:17 f.), and an instance of His power, or positively by showing the operation of GOD’S loving mercy and self-revelation. The responsibility of man is maintained because he is a living instrument, who has the choice of faith or rebellion. He has no right to quarrel with the necessity which imposes this choice or the consequences which follow it; they are the conditions of his being a man at all. The clue to the meaning is to be found in the fact that the dominant thought is not that of man’s personal destiny and final salvation or the contrary, but the thought of GOD’S call to service, and the relation of man to GOD in the execution of that service. The call of man to take part in this work of GOD is a crowning instance of GOD’S mercy to man. The work has to be done; but it may be done either with man’s cooperation or against his will. The story of man is in the first case a revelation of GOD’S mercy, in selecting men for certain uses, in the second a revelation of GOD’S wrath, in visiting the failure to execute His purpose. The clue to the nature of man’s responsibility is given in Rom 9:32. See Add. Note, p. 222.