God's Love Shamefully Questioned
(No. 2532)
INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, AUGUST 29, 1897.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING, APRIL
13, 1884.
"I have loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, In what way have You
loved us?" Malachi 1:2.
Man, by nature, is a lump of ingratitude. He is often ungrateful even
to his earthly friends and he is invariably ungrateful to his Best
Friend, above, until the Grace of God has changed his heart. Leave him
alone and though he may be loaded with mercy, yet he will never bless
the hand that gives him the favor. Should he even be allowed to survive
so long as a hundred years, unless the Holy Spirit shall deal with him,
he will not once remember his God in grateful thankfulness, but he will
go on, from the beginning to the end of the century, always receiving,
but never rendering back to the Lord anything like gratitude. We often
say that ingratitude is one of the worst of sins–and we feel it so
when it concerns ourselves. But we quite forget that it must be worse
toward God than it is toward us, for, after all, whatever we may do for
others, we are only like stepfathers to the blessings we bestow, for
every good gift comes directly from the great Father of Lights, even
from God, Himself! We may be the channels conveying comfort to others,
but the blessing, itself, comes from Him. Shameful, then, is it that
all good should come from God and yet that man should be ungrateful to
Him who is the great Source of it all. The charge of ingratitude can be
made against us all as we are by nature–it is not merely of some base,
mean, groveling spirits that we are now speaking–but of mankind as a
whole, looking at it on a broad scale.
Observe, next, from our text, that the Lord does not like that we
should forget His love. He says here, by His servant Malachi, "I have
loved you, says the Lord. Yet you say, In what way have You loved us?"
And in the prophecy of Isaiah He says, "I have nourished and brought up
children, and they have rebelled against Me." Our ingratitude evidently
grieves God's heart–speaking after the manner of men. He cannot bear
that we should forget His love–He presses it upon us as a great fact
that He has loved us–and He seems astonished that we should, in our
ingratitude, ask the shameful question, "In what way have You loved
us?"
I am going to show you, dear Friends, that my text has a double bearing
and, first, we will view this Truth of God as it relates to the bulk of
men. There are some to whom God has been exceedingly kind, who are not
yet converted. They do not even profess to be His people, yet He has
dealt with them in such a way that He might truly say to them, "I have
loved you," in the sense in which we read that great Gospel text, "God
so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." When I
have dealt with that point, as God shall help me, we will then view
this Truth as it relates to the Lord's people and notice that innermost
kind of love of which they have tasted. Yet, though God has loved them
emphatically, with a very peculiar kind of love, some of them may be in
an ill-humor and may be saying, "In what way have You loved us?" An
earnest word with them may not be out of place and may do them good.
I. First, then, take the broadest meaning of the text and view THIS
TRUTH OF GOD AS IT RELATES TO THE BULK OF MEN.
God had a love to the nation of Israel, yet many in that nation loved
Him not, but turned from Him with ingratitude. Even then He still had a
benevolent'affection towards that nation, so that He favored them above
all other people, and gave them the means of Grace–and sent to them
the Light of God while the rest of the world remained in darkness.
Still, I am not going to speak, just now, particularly concerning
Israel, but to show the bearing of my text upon many who are living
today, whether Jews or Gentiles.
Let us begin by considering the announcement of the text. ' 'I have
loved you, says the Lord." There are many who have very specially
participated in God's favor in the form of sparing love. They are yet
alive–it is a wonder that they are, for they have passed through a
great many accidents. Others have been killed by very small things,
but, dear Friends, very greatthings have not killed you. You have been
very sick. Disease has laid you low. Several times you have been on the
very borders of the grave–the mold seemed to slip away from beneath
your feet and you were almost entombed! The doctor thought that there
was little hope of your recovery and others thought so, too. Yet here
you are, still in the land of the living! You have had perils in
rivers, perils on the deep, perhaps perils in battle. You have passed
through all manner of perils, yet you have been kept alive with death
so near! God has very graciously and mercifully preserved you. He has
not allowed you to die in your sins. You are getting rather old, too. I
perceive that your hair is pretty thickly sown with gray and from
others it has almost gone. I see a bald head here and there, or else
the snows of many winters lie white above your brow. Getting on to 70
and yet you have not yielded yourself to Christ–is it so with any whom
I am now addressing?
Seventy years of sparing mercy Truly, God has favored you exceedingly.
I do not suppose you are so long-suffering as that with any of your
fellow creatures! There are some with whom God has had great patience
who have not much patience of their own. If anybody offends them, it is
a word and a blow and, sometimes, it is a blow first! But here is the
Lord provoked to jealousy every day for 50, 60, 70 years–and all that
while He has held back His hand from smiting. All these 70 years that
tree has stood in the orchard and it has borne no fruit as yet to repay
the Owner's labor and care–yet has put back the axe again and again,
and said, "Let it alone, let it alone, let it alone this year also." It
cannot be always so, you know. And, still, in your case, my unconverted
Friend, up to the present there has been much sparing love on the
Lord's part in permitting you to cumber the ground so long.
That is not all, for there are also many in whom God has exhibited a
great amount of restraining love. Read the life of John Newton–in his
early days he went on board ship, dealt in slaves, traded on the
African coast and, at length, became enslaved himself! He went to great
lengths in sin, yet he said that there was always something which
seemed to check him and hold him back–and no doubt he would have
perished in his sin if it had not been that God had put that check upon
him. There are some who would have drunk themselves to death long ago,
but they could not get the drink, for they were too poor to purchase
it. What a blessing that was for them! And there is many a man who
would have gone to great excess of riot, but he has had a broken leg,
or he has had some infirmity so that he could not do as others did. And
if he is not now among the blackest of the black, it is because he
could not be. How grateful men ought to be when God thus restrains them
from sin! Though not yet saved, it is a great thing to have been kept
back from atrocious crimes and open sins.
In a field, one day, I saw a horse that had a clog on its foot–a thing
I do not admire at all. So I asked the owner why the horse was so
fettered. "Well," he said, "that horse has the bad habit of leaping
over the hedges. And if he were free, we could never keep him anywhere.
So I would a great deal sooner clog him than lose him." Some of you
have, perhaps, had a clog on your lives and you are likely to still
have it because the Lord does not mean to lose you! He will not let you
get away from Him. I have seen hogs in the country with great collars
round their necks, so that they should not be able to break through the
hedge–when they wanted to ramble out of the field, they could not. So,
sometimes, a man will, by his very poverty and infirmity, be prevented
from going into sin which otherwise he would have committed and which
would have been to his eternal ruin–and it is a clear proof of the
love of God that He has thus restrained him!
I have known others who have been kept back by the check which their
early training has had upon them. There are some who cannot sin as
others do, for a mother's tears are still remembered by them, and a
father's holy example tethers them to something like morality. It is
true that they go as far as they can, but there is a something which
will not let them find that pleasure in sin which others do. They drink
of the cup of devils, but it does not taste to them as it tastes to
their companions–the dregs of it are bitter and they often feel that
it will not do for them though it does for others. Surely, the Lord is
thus saying to them, "I have loved you in thus restraining you and
holding you back from sin."
But what a great proof of Divine affection it is when inviting love is
added to sparing love and restraining love! Many of you have been
placed where you have heard the Gospel faithfully preached. It is one
thing to go to a place of worship, but I am sorry to say that it is
quite another thing to hear the Gospel–for there are places of worship
where the newest and strangest thing to the congregation would be a
real Gospel discourse! But many of you, dear Friends, have heard the
Gospel from your childhood. You know about the Fall and about the only
way of recovery from it. You have heard of the atoning blood and of the
way of salvation by simple faith in Jesus Christ. What a blessing it is
to even hearthe Word! There are millions of the human race who have
never heard the Good News–and millions, I fear, will yet die without
having even heard the nameof Jesus! Even in our own country and under
the semblance of religious teaching, what masses of people we have who
never hear the Gospel–they hear about forms and ceremonies, and they
are deceived by the falsehoods of priest-craft, but the Truth of God,
as it is in Jesus, is an untold tale to them. So, if you have heard the
Gospel, and heard it often, there has been, in that privilege, a
wonderful manifestation of the love of God to you! Yet, more than that,
you have had full, free, earnest, honest, loving entreaties to come to
Christ that you may find life in Him. And you have been assured, time
out of mind, that, "whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved," and that, "He that believes on the Son has everlasting
life." I cannot boast of anything I have done for some of my hearers,
but this I can say–if I could know how to preach the Gospel more
plainly than I have done, I would be willing to go to school to learn
the art of it. I have preached as best I could and, oftentimes, when I
might have uttered a fine sentence, or used a pretty expression, I have
flung it to the winds that I might say something short and sharp that
would cut deep into the conscience and the heart! I care not what men
think of me–I want them to think well of my Master and ill of
themselves! I want them to escape from sin and fly to Calvary's Cross
and find eternal salvation there. And it is no small privilege and
favor from God for them to be honestly dealt with by the Lord's servant
and to be earnestly entreated to fly to Christ for mercy. "I have loved
you, says the Lord." If you want more proofs than these that I have
mentioned, they could be given, but there is not time for more just
now, as we must pass on to our next point.
After the announcement in the text, "I have loved you, says the Lord,"
there is a sentence of complaint–"Yet you say, wherein have You loved
us?" "How has God ever loved me?" one asks–"I have not a coat on my
back." But how did you come to be without a coat? You drank yourself
into this state, did you not? And you think it would be a token of love
from God if He were to let you continue to lead a drunken dissolute
life and yet have all you want? Why, would not this great sinful London
become a thousand times worse than it is if drunkenness did not bring a
man to poverty and rags? Would it be any evidence of God's love to men
if He allowed them to live in debauchery and drunkenness, and yet still
have all the comforts of this life and not to come to need? I tell you,
among all men, I pity most the young lord who has so much gold and
silver that he may squander as he pleases and indulge himself in every
vice–and then begin again in his evil course! What can that man do but
go to the devil unless God's Grace shall stop him?
I talked, some time ago, to a young man who bears a very honored name.
His father was one of the best Christian men I have known, yet the son
seemed to take a pride in telling me of all his ways of sin. His
father's name was not as sacred to him as it was to me, but a thing to
be spat upon! Although he could not truthfully find a fault in his
father, yet to him, he was "a fool." As for the young man, when he went
on to tell me his story, everything grieved me till he said that he was
greatly serving his country by improving the breed of horses and that
he had taken to racing. "Oh," I said, "I feel rather glad to hear that,
for now you will soon get cleaned out. Your money will speedily be gone
and that, I trust, will be the way home for you." I asked him whether
he knew why Satan did not drive express trains to Hell and when he said
that he did not know, I told him that it was because he had found that
racehorses carried men and women there faster than anything else that
he could invent! And I added that I hoped that, one of these days, he
might get a heavy fall and so find himself in the hands of that Great
Surgeon who would give him a new heart and a right spirit. We would not
encourage any man in any sin whatever, but, sometimes it does happen
that the climax of sin becomes the turning-point of the sinner!
It is a great mercy for many of you working men that if you go even a
little distance in certain sins, you get pulled up. Instead of its
being an evidence of harshness on God's part, it is often a token of
special favor. I know that I have often had an opportunity of speaking
to men very plainly about their sinful state when they have fallen into
trouble–and I have seen a little tenderness in them, then–and there
has been an opportunity of bringing before them the claims of Christ.
Suppose, now, the father in the parable, when his son was feeding the
swine in the far country, had said, "There is my dear boy in great
poverty. He is very hungry. I will send him a basket of provisions. He
has begun to be in need, so I will make him a present of clothes and
money just as if he were at home"? What would have been the effect of
such treatment? Why, the prodigal would have stayed in the far country
and would have died there, away from his father! His hungry belly was
the best blessing that he could have had, with the exception of his
father's love! "When he came to himself,"
through his hunger and need, then he said, "I will arise and go to my
father." And the miseries of men, though brought on by their own sin,
are often God's voice saying to them, "'The way of transgressors is
hard. 'Turn you, turn you: why will you die?' Leave that evil road."
You who are living in sin have only to look at your afflictions to see,
at once, evidences that God has loved you!
I am also addressing a great many others who ought to see God's love to
them in their mercies. You have a wife and children about you. You have
a good business by which you are able to earn your bread even in these
days of keen competition. You have good health and a thousand earthly
comforts. O my dear Friend, when there is so much poverty and
starvation in this great city, should you not be grateful to God? You
may well say–
"Not more than others I deserve, Yet God has given me more."
The very least you can do, surely, is to serve Him and obey His
gracious message. If looked at aright, our mercies and our miseries are
equally proofs of love. And there are some to whom God has given very
choice tokens of love. You, dear Friend, had a holy father–that was no
small blessing. You had a godly mother–that was another great mercy.
You have a praying wife–I do not know a more priceless gift than that!
There are some whom I know who cannot get down to Hell, though they
seem to try to do so, for, whichever way they move, there is somebody
or other praying for them! And they are conscious that, at this very
moment, they are the subject of some loved one's prayer. Surely, God
has an eye of love upon those whom He has encompassed with His own dear
servants who, day and night, are praying for them!
There are others, to whom God has given a very special favor, namely, a
tender conscience. When I was a child, if I had done anything wrong, I
did not need anybody to tell me of it. I told myself of it and I have
cried myself to sleep many a time with the consciousness that I had
done wrong! And when I came to know the Lord, I felt very grateful to
Him because He had given me a tender conscience. Never tamper with
conscience, dear Friends, or seek to make it less sensitive. It will
soon get two or three skins over it and become as hard and callous as a
farm laborer's hands. It is a great mercy to have the conscience so
tender that it bleeds at the slightest touch of sin–and I know some of
you who have not yet given your hearts to Christ, who, nevertheless,
have a very tender conscience. It is a great help to any man who has
it–and you have no need to say, "In what way have You loved me?" You
have proof enough of the Lord's favor in the fact of His giving you
such sensitiveness to sin! Take care that you do not lose it by the
abuse of the privilege.
I have thus put before you God's announcement, and God's complaint.
I close this part of my discourse by reminding you of the suggestion in
the text. Does it not suggest to you, my dear Hearer, that you should
thank God for all His favors towards you if you have been thus loved?
Do not be like the hog that eats the acorns under the oak, but never
lifts up its head to bless the tree that gives it its food. It is
better, as John Bunyan tells us, to imitate the little chicken that
never sips a drop of water without lifting its head as if to thank God
for every drop it drinks. God give to every one of you a thankful
heart! Should it not also be natural to you to try to please Him? But
"without faith it is impossible to please Him." If there were anything
you could do for God, would you not do it? "This is the work of God,
that you believe on Him whom He has sent." Do you not think that after
all His goodness to you, you should trust Him? Do trust Him–He will
never deceive you. Lean upon Him–He will not fail you. And then love
Him. May the Holy Spirit lead you to do so!
II. Now, in the second place, we are to VIEW THIS TRUTH AS IT RELATES
TO THE LORD'S PEOPLE, those to whom God can say, emphatically, in the
highest, deepest, fullest sense, "I have loved you."
And, first, we will notice the statement on God's part''I have loved
you, says the Lord." Now that I am addressing those who are in Christ,
what a fullness there is in my subject! God loved you, my Brothers and
Sisters, long before the world was made! The verse from which our text
is taken goes on to speak of Jacob and Esau, and of God's choice of
Jacob. So, dear Friends, there was an electinglovein your case as well
as in Jacob's–
"What was there in you that could merit esteem, Or give the Creator
delight?"
Yet He didtake delight in you even from eternity! Perhaps you are the
only converted one in your family–to you has been fulfilled that
ancient promise, "I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family,
and I will bring you to Zion." I looked with something of wonder upon a
Sister who came, this week, to join the Church. She could not remember
anyone in her family, as far back as she could go, or any relative of
any sort, who ever made any profession of religion, or went to any
place of worship. She herself was an amazing instance of how the Grace
of God gets at some people! There she was, all by herself, like a brand
plucked out of the fire. Some of us have had the same experience, while
others of us have the still greater joy of belonging to a family where
all or nearly all love the Lord–yet it is equally wonderful to us that
God has loved us and our families–and set us apart for Himself.
If you begin your meditation there, at the wellhead of discriminating
Grace and electing love, before all worlds, you can go right on and
find some Covenant mercy always at your feet, for the Lord who loved
His people gave His Son to die for them! Oh, what love was this!
"Herein is love." Giving His Son to die for them, He gave His Spirit to
live in them. Here is wondrous love, again–that the Spirit should come
and call us, quicken us, renew us, sanctify us and dwell in us and keep
us to this day! If we would speak of the love of God toward His people,
where shall we begin and where shall we leave off? Everything that God
does to His people is all love–sometimes the love is a little
disguised, but the love is always there! If He caresses, it is love. If
He chastens, it is love. If He smiles, it is love. If He frowns, it is
love, for God is Love and to His people nothing else but
Love–infinite, boundless, eternal, immeasurable, inexhaustible,
unchangeable, perpetual Love! Oh, the Lord has indeed loved His people,
and He does love them, and He will love them, and must love them
forever and forever! Let their hearts be glad in this fact.
Now we must turn to quite another phase of our subject, that is, evil
questioning on our part "Yet you say, wherein have You loved us?" God's
people sometimes get into a very ugly temper–some who are in the
Lord's family are very strange individuals. I would not speak evil of
dignitaries–and every child of God is a priest and a king and,
therefore, I must mind what I say. But, really, some of them are
strange people, at least at times. An old woman told John Newton she
was sure that God chose her before she was born, for He never would
have chosen her afterwards. And I think there is some truth in that
remark as regards others of the chosen family, for they do seem,
sometimes, to get into such an odd condition that one does not know
what to make of them. I think, no, I am sure I have heard them say to
the Lord, by their actions if not in words, "In what way have You loved
us?"
This has happened when they have been in very special trial. One of
them said, "All the day long have I been plagued and chastened every
morning." As much as to say that God whipped him every morning as soon
as he was up and kept on whipping him all day long! And he also said,
"I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked,
for there are no bands in their death: and their strength is firm. They
are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other
men. Verily," he added, "I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed
my hands in innocence." "Oh!" says somebody, "that was Judas Iscariot
who talked like that." No, it was not! It was Asaph, one of the sweet
singers of Israel! But he was getting a long way from the right state
of mind when he wrote such words as those. And only the Grace of God
brought him back–and he had to say, "So foolish was I, and ignorant: I
was as a beast before You." That was a wonderful confession for a man
of God to have to make. "Oh!" says one, "then he is very much to be
condemned." So he is, but mind that you do not have to be condemned for
the same sort of thing, for when a man who once was well-to-do comes to
be very poor–when he is also racked with disease so that all his
nerves are affected and his spirits sink, he may do what others before
him have done!
He is not to be justified, even then, in speaking or thinking harshly
of God! It is a great sin and a great wrong under any circumstances,
yet it is done, and it is a grievous thing that it should be done. And
I pray any child of God who is now doing it to leave off before he is
made to smart for it under the Lord's rod. He will not endure such
treatment from you. He tells you that He loves you and He wants you to
believe it and to know that all your trials and troubles are sent in
love and that, in the end, you shall see that all these things have
worked together for your good, seeing that you love God and are the
called according to His purpose. I do not know to whom this message
especially belongs, but I am certain that there is somebody here who
ought to take this Truth of God home to his heart and cease from being
envious of the wicked and fretting against the ungodly.
Sometimes this evil questioning happens when a true child of God gets
sad and depressed. A man may be very brave and full of joy–and the
hand of God may be suddenly laid upon him and his spirits may sink
almost down to despair. At such times, though it ought not to be the
case, yet it often happens that the Christian begins to say, "How can
God have loved me? I am so low, so sad, so depressed–it cannot be that
He loves me." Do not talk like that, dear Friend! Grieve not the Holy
Spirit by saying anything of the kind! But turn to your God and say,
"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." "It is the Lord: let Him
do what seems good to Him." He has made your Heaven secure! He has
given you Christ!
He has given you a new heart and a right spirit! And He says that you
shall shortly be with Him enthroned above the skies! Therefore do not
begin to ask, "In what way have You loved me?"
And, lastly, I have known this question come from professors when they
have begun to backslide. When they have grown cold in heart and
indifferent in spirit, then they have said, "The Lord does not love us;
we have no evidences and tokens that He does." Do you remember what the
prodigal's elder brother said to his father? "Lo, these many years have
I served you, neither transgressed I at any time your commandment: and
yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends."
He said, in effect, that he never had any joy! He was just a servant in
the house and nothing more. But if he had had no joy, whose fault was
it? What did his father say to him? "Son, you are always with me, and
all that I have is yours." If he had liked, he might not only have
taken a kid, but a dozen kids and all the goats and sheep his father
had, for they were all his own! If a Christian is not happy, let him
blame himself, not his Lord!–
"How vast the treasure we possess!
How rich Your bounty, King of Grace!
This world is ours, and worlds to come–
Earth is our lodge and Heaven our home.
All things are ours–the gift of God,
The purchase of a SSavior's blood!
While the good Spirit shows us how
To use and to improve them too." So we ought to be glad and to rejoice!
And if we do not, it is because we have grown cold and have wandered
away from our Lord. If any of you are saying, "In what way have You
loved us?" drop that question at once and come home to your Father, and
let your Father's heart be a fountain of delight to you–for He loves
you and always will!
I should like to stop just now if you will all think over this one
thought. It will not trouble you. It is the sweetest thought and yet it
is the simplest that ever can be. Let everyone who believes in Christ
try to get the marrow out of this truth. "The Lord loves me." Not
merely that the Lord pities me–thinks of me–cares for me–all that is
true. But the Lord loves me, the Lord lovesme, the Lordloves me! Oh,
the sweet savor of that word, "love"–to be loved of the great heart
which sustains the universe! O child of God, you are as much loved of
God as if He had not another child to love! You have all His love, as
much as if there were none but you for Him to love! Will you not be
glad and rejoice in Him? Cease your murmuring and lift up your soul in
song–and bless and praise His holy name from this time forth, and even
for evermore! Amen.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: ROMANS9.
Paul begins by expressing his great sorrow because the Jews had
rejected Christ.
Verses 1-3. I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also
bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and
continual sorrow in my heart For I could wish that I, myself, were
accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the
flesh. They hated Paul intensely–nothing could surpass the malice of
the Jews against the man whom they reckoned to be an apostate from the
true faith because he had become a follower of Christ, the Nazarene.
Yet note what is Paul's feeling towards his cruel countrymen! He is
willing, as it were, to put his own salvation in pawn if by doing so
the Jews might but be saved! You must not measure these words by any
hard grammatical rule, you must understand them as spoken out of the
depths of great loving heart. And when such a heart as Paul had, begins
to talk, it speaks not according to the laws of logic, but according to
its own immeasurable feelings. There were times when he almost thought
that he would, himself, consent to be accursed, "anathema," cast away,
separated from Christ–if thereby he could save the house of Israel, so
great was his love towards them! Of course, this could not be, and no
one understood better than Paul did that there is only one Substitute
and one Sacrifice for sinners. He only mentioned this wish to show how
dearly he loved the Jews, so that on their account he had great
heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart for his brethren, his
kinsmen according to the flesh.
Do you, dear Friends, feel that same concern about your brethren, your
kinsmen according to the flesh? If they are not saved, do you greatly
wonder that they are not if you have no such concern about them? But
when once your heart is brought to this pitch of agony about their
souls, if it is our Lord's will, you will soon see them saved!
4, 5. Who are Israelites; to whom pertains the adoption, and the glory,
and the covenants, and the giving of the Law, and the service of God,
and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the
flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. This was
what troubled the Apostle so much concerning the Jews–that they should
have such extraordinary privileges and yet should be cast away, but
most of all that Jesus Christ, the Savior of men, should be of their
race, bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh–and yet they would not
receive Him, or be saved by Him! Oh, the terrible hardness of the human
heart! And what poor things the richest privileges are unless the Grace
of God goes with them to give us the inner secret of true faith in
Christ!
6. Not as though the Word of God has taken no effect. Paul is always
jealous lest anyone should suppose that the Word of God has failed, or
that the purpose of God has come to nothing.
6, 7. For they are not alllsrael which are oflsrael: neither, because
they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children. Now he goes on to
show that the blessings of God's Grace do not go according to carnal
descent. It is true that God promised to bless the seed of Abraham, yet
He meant that word, "seed," in a very special sense.
7. But, In Isaac shall your seed be called. By passing over Ishmael,
God showed that there was nothing of saving efficacy in blood or birth.
Ishmael was the first-born son of Abraham, but he was passed by, for
the promise was, "In Isaac shall your seed be called."
8-10. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not
the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed. For this is the Word of promise, At this time will I come,
and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also
had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac. When there were twins
to be born of her.
11-13. (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand, not of works, but of Him that calls), it was said unto her, The
elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved,
but Esau have I hated. Here were two children born at the same time,
yet Esau was not of the true "seed." It matters not how closely you may
be connected with the people of God–unless you have a new heart and a
right spirit, yourself, you still do not belong to the Covenant seed,
for it is not of the flesh that this privilege comes, but God has
chosen a spiritual seed according to His own good pleasure.
14. What shall we say, then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God
forbid!Paul knew very well that there would always be some who would
cry out against this doctrine, that men would say that God was partial
and unjust. If he had not foreseen that the declaration of this
doctrine would provoke such remarks, he would not have put it so–"What
shall we say, then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid!"
15, 16. For He said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So
then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that
shows mercy. You know that the modern way of meeting objections to
Scripture is to give up everything to the infidel and then say that you
have won him–but the true Christian way is to give up nothing at
all–and if the Truth of God is objectionable, to make it, if possible,
still more objectionable, to turn the very hardest side it has, right
in front of the face of man, and to say, "This i s God's Truth–refuse
it at your peril." I believe that half the attempts to win over
unbelievers by toning down the Truths of God have simply been to the
dishonoring of the Truths of God and the destruction of the
doubter–and that it would always be better to do as the Apostle does
here –not to disavow the Truth of God, but to proclaim it as fully,
faithfully and plainly as possible. Let us again read what he says
here–"Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! For He says to
Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have
compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him
that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy."
17. For the Scripture says unto Pharaoh. Paul is now going to show the
other side of the same Truth of God–"The Scripture says unto Pharaoh."
17-19. Even for this same purpose have Iraisedyou up, that Imight show
Mypower in you, and that My name might be declared throughout all the
earth. Therefore has He mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He
will, He hardens. You will say, then, unto me, Why does He yet find
fault? For who has resisted His will? Paul knew that the doctrine would
be objected to on this ground. Evidently he intended to assert
something which was open to this objection, which would naturally
suggest itself to men–"Why does He yet find fault? For who has
resisted His will?"
20-25. No but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the
thing formed say to Him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Has
not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel
unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His
wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering
the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make
known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had
afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He has called, not of the Jews
only, but also of the Gentiles? As He says also in Hosea, I will call
them My people, which were not My people; and her beloved, which was
not beloved. See the grand style in which God talks to men? He speaks
after a royal fashion– "I will." He asks no man's permission for what
He will do–"I will call them My people, which were not My people; and
her beloved, which was not beloved."
26. And it shall come to pass that in the place where it was said unto
them, You are not My people. Though He, Himself, had said it,
26. There shall they be called the children of the living God. See the
splendor of this Divine Sovereignty which shows itself in wondrous,
unexpected acts of Grace, selecting and taking to itself those who seem
to be self-condemned, and even condemned by Himself, of whom He had
said, "You are not My people"?
27-31. Isaiah also cries concerning Israel, Though the number of the
children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be
saved: for He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness:
because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Isaiah
said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been
as Sodom, and been made like unto Gomorrah. What shall we say, then?
That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have
attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith?
But Israel, which followed after the Law of righteousness, has not
attained to the Law of righteousness? Does it not seem strange that men
who were outwardly sinful, who were utterly ignorant of any way of
righteousness and even indifferent to it, have been, by the Grace of
God, led to seek righteousness in the right way, namely, by faith in
Christ, and they have found it, and God's electing love is seen in
them? While others, who seem very sincere and devout as to outward
ritual, by following it and it, alone, have missed their way and never
found the true righteousness? The Sovereignty of God appears in the
choosing of those who follow the way of faith and the casting away of
those who follow the way of mere outward righteousness. But why did
Israel miss the way?
32, 33. Why? Because they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by
the works of the Law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone; as it
is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of
offense. I say again that there have been great attempts made with
logical dynamite to blow up this great rock of offense and to clear
away every difficulty from the path of the man who wants to be saved by
his own method, and to make everything pleasant all around for him. But
against this course of action we bear our continual protest, for it is
not according to the mind of God, or the teaching of His Word– "As it
is written, Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of
offense."
33. And whoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed. But if they
believe not on Him, they shall, one day, be ashamed and, meanwhile, the
eternal purpose of God shall still stand! He shall still be glorious
whatever men shall do, or shall not do!