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9: 1.

I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not playing false. My conscience enlightened by the Holy Spirit is my witness that I am very much grieved and my heart is incessantly pained. Yes, I was even on the point of wishing myself devoted to destruction and so separated from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my blood relations :

Who are Israelites ;

Whose is the adoption to be sons,

And the visible manifestation of the Di

vine Presence,

And the covenants,

And the giving of the law,

And the Temple worship and ritual,

And the promises;

Whose are the fathers;

And from whom,

So far as natural descent is concerned,

Came the Christ, .

He who is over everything,

God blessed forever.

Amen.

But it is not as if the word of God has come to nothing. For they are not all Israel who have sprung from Israel. Nor are they all children of Abraham because they are natural descendants of Abraham. On the contrary

It is in Isaac your posterity shall be named.

ROM. 9:8.

DIVINE SELECTION.

165

That is, it is not those who are children by natural descent, who are the children of God. It is those who are children in fulfilment of the promise who are regarded as descendants. For the promise is this:

About this time of the year will I come,

And Sarah shall have a son.

And not only so, but Rebecca, also, when she had conceived by one man, by Isaac our father,—for before they were born and before they had done anything good or bad, so that the purpose of God. as determined by the Divine Choice might continue, not as depending on what each one did, but as depending on the calling, it was said to her: The elder shall be the younger's slave:

just as it is written :

Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

What, then, shall we say? Surely there is no wrong-doing with God?

By no means. For he says to Moses:

I will have mercy on him on whom I have mercy,

And compassion for him for whom I have compassion. So, then, it does not depend on human will, or human effort, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh :

It was for this very purpose I raised thee up,

So that in thee I might show my power,

And so that my name might be declared in all the earth.

9: 18.

So, then, he has mercy on him whom he desires, and him whom he desires he hardens.

You will, then, say to me:

Why is he still finding fault? For who is resisting his will?

Much rather, O man, who are you,

Who are answering back to God?

Surely the thing made will not say to the maker : Why are you making me thus?

Or has not the potter the right

To do as he desires with the clay, And to make from the same mass,

A costly article and a cheap one?

And what if God, desiring to show his wrath,
And to make known his power,

Has borne most patiently with the articles de-
voted to wrath,

And suitable for destruction,

So as to make known the wealth of his glory
On the articles of mercy

Which he has prepared beforehand for glory,
Whom also he has called, that is, us,

Not only from among the Jews,

But also from among the heathen!

As he says also in Hosea :

I will call that my people
Which was not my people,

And her my loved one,

Who was not my loved one.

ROM. 9: 26.

GOD'S CHOSEN ONES.

167

And it will happen

That in the place where it was said to them

Ye are not my people,

There will they be called:

Sons of the living God.

And Isaiah keeps crying concerning Israel:

If the number of Israel's sons

Shall be as the sand of the sea,

It is the remnant

Which shall be saved.

For Jehovah will do what he has said,

On the earth,

Completing and determining it.

Just as Isaiah has also said before:

If Jehovah of hosts had not left us descendants,
We should have become as Sodom,

And been made like Gomorrah.

What, then, shall we say?

That the heathen, those who were not trying to gain goodness, did gain it, but it was a goodness arising from faith: but Israel, who was ever trying to keep a law whose object was goodness, did not come up to the law's requirements.

Why?

Because they kept seeking it, not by the way of faith, but under the belief that it could be reached by doing what the law required. In other words, they stumbled on the stumbling stone, just as it is written :

Behold, I am laying in Zion a stumbling stone,

And rock of offense,

And he who keeps believing in him,

Shall not be put to shame.

9:33.

For I

Brothers, my hearty good will and my prayer to God for them is, that they may be saved. can say this for them, that they have zeal for God: but not in accord with accurate knowledge. For, ignorant of God's goodness and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's goodFor the purpose of the law is that Christ may provide goodness for every one who believes. For, writing about the goodness which comes from law, Moses says that

ness.

A man shall live by means of it

If he carries it into practice.

But the goodness which comes from faith has this

to say:

Do not say in your heart:

Who shall go up to heaven?

That is, to bring Christ down:
Or who shall go down to the abyss ?

That is, to bring Christ up from the dead:

On the contrary, what does it say?

The word is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart:

That is, the word which leads to the faith

which we are proclaiming.

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