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Pelagius

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · 465 passages across 8 books

Commentary

301–320 of 465
Romans 9:14

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

Paul was afraid that because he had argued that racial privilege is of no consequence in God’s sight, or in case the Jews understood him to be saying that already at that time it was indicated that later people would be better people, they might think that he meant that God makes some people good and others evil, because, in the judgment of the Jews, it was unjust to punish those who had not voluntarily sinned, Paul also calls to mind the contrary texts which they usually used to support this view, and after replying to these examples with brief objections he shows that they should not be understood as they understand them.

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Romans 9:15

For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

This means: “I will have mercy on him whom I have foreknown will be able to deserve compassion, so that I have already had mercy on him.”

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Romans 9:16

So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

The Jewish argument here goes like this: “It does not depend on the one who wills or on the one who runs; God has mercy on whomever he wills and hardens whomever he wills.” The apostle, though, does not take away what we possess in our own will.… For if the Jewish argument is correct, why does Paul run, as when he says: “I have finished the race,” and why does he urge others to run? For this reason it is understood that here Paul takes the role of the one who questions (and refutes), not of the one who denies.

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Romans 9:17

For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

The Jews explain this passage in the wrong way as well. It is expounded by Christian interpreters in one of two ways. First, there are those who say that since each one will be punished when the measure and degree of his sins is complete … and Pharaoh had exceeded his limit, God desired to make an example of him for the benefit of others … so that God’s people might come to know his justice and power and neither dare to sin nor fear their enemies. The same thing that happened to Pharaoh happens when a doctor, seeking the cure for an illness, discovers a remedy in the course of torturing someone who has already been condemned to death for committing many crimes or when a judge, although he could punish a guilty man immediately, afflicts him first with various torments in order to rouse everyone’s fear.Second, there are those who say that Pharaoh was hardened by God’s patience, for after a plague from God was over Pharaoh became harder, and although God knew that Pharaoh had not repented he nevertheless wanted to show his forbearance even toward him.

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Romans 9:18

Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

If this is understood to mean that God has mercy on whom he wills and hardens whom he wills because there is enough wickedness, then your argument will be lost, viz., the argument that not you but the will of the Lord, to which there can be no opposition, is the cause of your sins. The very nature of God’s justice opposes this reasoning.

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Romans 9:20

Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

Some people say that Paul is still speaking here in the role of those who object, because to say that nobody can oppose the will of God, who has mercy on one and who hardens another, and to add that nobody should criticize God amounts to the same thing. But others say that from here on the apostle replies that, even if there were a reason for them to make an accusation, they ought not to talk back to their Creator, for in comparison with God, we are like a piece of pottery in the hands of the potter.

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Romans 9:22

What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

God put up with Pharaoh for a long time while Pharaoh blasphemed and oppressed his people with hard labor and even had ordered that innocent little children be put to death. By filling up the quota of their sins, people like Pharaoh become vessels worthy of wrath, and by their own doing they prepare themselves for destruction.

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Romans 9:24

Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

Since even then some of the Egyptians left with the children of Israel … so too now God has called not only Jews but also Gentiles to faith.

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Romans 9:26

And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.

Those who think that this is not Paul talking but the Jews interpret it to mean: “God saved as many as he wished, so that he chose even Gentile idolaters who had never served God, and called few from Israel, as Isaiah testifies.”

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Romans 9:27

Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:

Here Isaiah showed that only a few Jews would believe.

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Romans 9:28

For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

The historical sense is that, just as I shorten and finish off a sentence, so God will accomplish this with all speed. But in prophecy, the shortened sentence is understood to mean the New Testament, because everything is briefly summarized in it.

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Romans 9:29

And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.

Predicted is a good choice of words, because the same thing as he mentioned [in verses 27-28] was written even earlier. God did not allow a few righteous people to perish along with a host of the ungodly. Or this text may mean that this would have happened had Christ, Abraham’s offspring, not been sent to set the people free. The interpretation of the objectors, however, is that it would have happened, unless God had wished to call at least a few from among the Jews.

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Romans 9:30

What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith.

If this is spoken in the person of the apostle, Paul here once again imagines that the Jews might say: “If it is not true, as we say, that it does not depend on the one who wills or on the one who runs, why have the Gentiles found righteousness, which they never sought before, while Israel could not find it, although they have always sought it?” But if the whole of the above thought belongs to the objectors, the apostle is here replying and summarizing the issue by saying: “What shall I say to these objections which are presented to us except that the Gentiles believed as soon as they were called and that the Jews refused to believe?” Righteousness is by faith, and the Jews refused to believe.

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Romans 9:31

But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.

Paul explains once again why the Jews did not find righteousness. Having wrongly gloried in their works they refused to believe and rejected grace on the ground that they were righteous already.

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Romans 9:32

Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

The man who sees a stone does not stumble, but the blind man dashes himself against it. This is what happened to the Jews, who were blinded by their hatred and crucified Christ because they did not recognize him.

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Romans 9:33

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

It was foretold that Christ would be the stumbling stone and the rock of offense precisely because many take offense at his birth and death. … Nobody who believes, not just the Jew, will be put to shame by former sins.

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Romans 10:1

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

Here Paul shows that he prays for his enemies not only with the tongue but also with the heart.

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Romans 10:2

For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

The Jews are zealous in pursuing the law, but they do not understand that Christ came according to the law and that they cannot be justified by the law. Indeed, it is risky to do something without knowledge, because it often turns out contrary to what was expected.

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Romans 10:3

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Because the Jews did not know that God justifies by faith alone and because they thought they were righteous by the works of a law they did not keep, they refused to submit themselves to the forgiveness of sins, to prevent the appearance of having been sinners, as it is written: “But the Pharisees, rejecting God’s purpose for themselves, refused to be baptized with John’s baptism.”

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Romans 10:4

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

On the day that one believes in Christ it is as if one has fulfilled the whole law.

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