TRV
Origen of Alexandria
Ante-Nicene · to AD 325
2,651 passages across 61 books of the Bible · Who was this?
On Romans
181–200 of 296-
Romans 9:21
Remember the incident in Jeremiah when the prophet went down to the potter’s house and found him reworking a clay vessel which was spoiled, as it seemed good to him to do. Then the Lord said: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” It seems to me that no more need be said on the subject.…Someone who does not cleanse himself and does not wash away his sins by repentance is a vessel fit only for menial use. If he goes on and increases in wickedness so that his mind is hardened and his impenitent heart ends up despising everything God commands, then he will no longer be fit even for menial use but will become a vessel fit only for destruction.
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Romans 9:22
I am astonished when I examine the Holy Spirit’s purpose in the Scriptures. For he says that the wrath of God, which is foreign to his nature, will be made known to men … but that his goodness and mercy, which are proper to his nature, will be concealed and hidden.… Why should God reveal his wrath to men and conceal his mercy? No doubt it is because God knows that the human race is weak and prone to fall through negligence, and that it is therefore better for them to be under the fear of wrath than to relax in the hope of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
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Romans 9:23
The riches of God are made known when his mercy is shown toward those who are rejected by men and who are downtrodden, who put their hope not in their own riches or in their own strength but in the Lord.
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Romans 9:29
What children are these that the Lord has left? No doubt this means what the apostle expounds elsewhere, when he says that it was said to Abraham: “I shall give this land to you and to your seed.” He did not say “to your seeds,” as if to many, but to your seed, as if to one, and that one is Christ.Nor was it an accident that Isaiah called the remnant a seed. It was so called because it was meant to be sown in the earth and bear much fruit. In this way he teaches that Christ must also be sown, that is, buried in the earth, from which he would rise and bear fruit in the whole multitude of the church.
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Romans 9:30
It is one thing to pursue righteousness and another to have it implanted within. A person who tries by much teaching and reading to obtain something is said to pursue it.… In this sense, the Gentiles, who did not have the tables of the law or the written Word, cannot be said to have pursued righteousness. Nevertheless, they had it in them because the natural law had taught it to them. Therefore, they were close to that righteousness which is of faith, that is, to Christ.
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Romans 9:31
Israel pursued the law of righteousness according to the letter but did not fulfill the law. What law? No doubt the law of the Spirit.
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Romans 9:32
The apostle would never say that they did not fulfill the law which they pursued, which they had and held in their hands. Rather he is explaining why Israel was unable to fulfill the law. It was because they relied on works, not on faith.
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Romans 10:2
If someone has a love for God but does not know that love must be patient, kind, not envious, not acting wrongly, not puffed up, not ambitious, not seeking its own and so on; if he does not have these things in his love but only loves God in his emotions, then it may rightly be said of him that he has a love for God but not according to knowledge.
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Romans 10:4
Christ is the end of the law, but only for those who believe. Those who do not believe and who do not have Christ do not have the end of the law and therefore cannot come to justification.
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Romans 10:5
Moses did not say that the man who practices the righteousness of the law will live forever but only that he will live by it in this life. For Christ is the end of the law, as the apostle says, and without Christ it is impossible to fulfill the righteousness of the law.
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Romans 10:7
We are not to think that Christ is in heaven in such a way as to be absent from the depths.… Furthermore, if someone should go down into the depths in his mind and thought, thinking that Christ is contained there and that he can somehow be called back from the dead … let him realize that he ought to think of Christ as he thinks of the Word, the truth and the righteousness of God. These things are not limited to a particular place but are present everywhere, nor can they be called up from the lower depths, but they can be grasped only by the mind and the intellect.
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Romans 10:8
By this Paul indicates that Christ is in the heart of all men by virtue of his being the Word or reason [logos] embedded in all things by sharing in which all men are rational.
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Romans 10:8
Here we have to bear in mind the important distinction between what is possible in theory and what is realized in practice.… Christ, who is the Word of God, is potentially near us and near everyone, but this is only realized in practice when I confess with my mouth that Christ is Lord and when I believe in my heart that God has raised him from the dead.
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Romans 10:11
If no one who believes in him will be put to shame, it is clear that those who sin will be, just as Adam sinned and was ashamed and hid himself. So whoever incurs the shame of sin obviously does not believe.
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Romans 10:15
It seems to me that there is some difficulty with this [verse]. For if we understand it to mean that nobody preaches because nobody is sent … then it would appear that the reason they are not saved is ultimately the fault of Christ for not having sent them.But it is better for us to understand this as follows. It is as if the apostle were saying: “We, the heralds and preachers of Christ, would not be able to preach, nor would we have any power to proclaim, if he who sent us were not also present with us. So if you do not want to listen to us when we preach, that is your problem, if hearing you do not believe, and not believing, you do not call on him, and not calling on him, you are not saved.” The beauty of the preacher’s feet must be understood in a spiritual, not in a physical sense. For it would make a mockery of the apostle’s meaning to suppose that the feet of the evangelists, which can be seen with the physical eye, should be regarded as beautiful in themselves.… Only those feet which walk in the way of life can make this claim. Given that Christ said that he is the way, you s…
It seems to me that there is some difficulty with this [verse]. For if we understand it to mean that nobody preaches because nobody is sent … then it would appear that the reason they are not saved is ultimately the fault of Christ for not having sent them.But it is better for us to understand this as follows. It is as if the apostle were saying: “We, the heralds and preachers of Christ, would not be able to preach, nor would we have any power to proclaim, if he who sent us were not also present with us. So if you do not want to listen to us when we preach, that is your problem, if hearing you do not believe, and not believing, you do not call on him, and not calling on him, you are not saved.”
The beauty of the preacher’s feet must be understood in a spiritual, not in a physical sense. For it would make a mockery of the apostle’s meaning to suppose that the feet of the evangelists, which can be seen with the physical eye, should be regarded as beautiful in themselves.… Only those feet which walk in the way of life can make this claim. Given that Christ said that he is the way, you should understand that it is the feet of those evangelists who walk according to that way which deserve to be called beautiful. -
Romans 10:16
Not all the Gentiles have believed the gospel nor have all the Jews, but many have, and many more Gentiles have believed than Jews. In this passage, “who has believed really means few have believed.” … Isaiah here is speaking prophetically in the person of the apostles, to whom the work of preaching was entrusted. It was they, when they saw how few believers there were in Israel, who exclaimed: “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
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Romans 10:18
This passage, taken from Psalm 19[: 4], must refer to the Gentiles.
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Romans 10:19
Having just spoken of the Gentiles Paul goes on, as is his custom, to talk about Israel as well. His intention is to demonstrate by suitable quotations that Israel has no excuse for its rejection of Christ.In this passage it is true that Moses the friend of God wanted to attach blame to the people of God, but he also foresaw in the Spirit that if someone wants to be wise in this world he must become foolish, in order to be wise in the sight of God.
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Romans 10:20
From the context, it is obvious that this must refer to the Gentiles.
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Romans 10:21
The Hebrew text does not contain the words and contrary, but here the apostle has followed the Septuagint and quoted the passage as they understood it.