---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible"
author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 698 of 927
url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/698/
cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 698. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/698/"
---

# Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

*Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown*

The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation.

## 698. Romans · 15 of 22

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/698/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/698/#p-N

[¶0] grafted in among them--Though it is more usual to graft the superior cutting upon the inferior stem, the opposite method, which is intended here, is not without example.

[¶1] and with them partakest--"wast made partaker," along with the branches left, the believing remnant.

[¶2] of the root and fatness of the olive tree--the rich grace secured by covenant to the true seed of Abraham.

[¶3] 19-21. Thou wilt say then--as a plea for boasting.

[¶4] The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.

[¶5] 22-23. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them that fell, severity--in rejecting the chosen seed.

[¶6] but toward thee, goodness--"God's goodness" is the true reading, that is, His sovereign goodness in admitting thee to a covenant standing who before wert a "stranger to the covenants of promise" ([Ep 2:12-20]).

[¶7] if thou continue in his goodness--in believing dependence on that pure goodness which made thee what thou art.

[¶8] 24. For if thou wert cut--"wert cut off"

[¶9] from the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wast grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, &c.--This is just the converse of [Ro 11:21]: "As the excision of the merely engrafted Gentiles through unbelief is a thing much more to be expected than was the excision of the natural Israel, before it happened; so the restoration of Israel, when they shall be brought to believe in Jesus, is a thing far more in the line of what we should expect, than the admission of the Gentiles to a standing which they never before enjoyed."

[¶10] 25. For I would not ... that ye should be ignorant of this mystery--The word "mystery," so often used by our apostle, does not mean (as with us) something incomprehensible, but "something before kept secret, either wholly or for the most part, and now only fully disclosed" (compare [Ro 16:25]; [1Co 2:7-10]; [Ep 1:9], ; [3:3-6], [9, 10]).

[¶11] lest ye should be wise in your own conceits--as if ye alone were in all time coming to be the family of God.

[¶12] that blindness--"hardness"

[¶13] in part is happened to--"hath come upon"

[¶14] Israel--that is, hath come partially, or upon a portion of Israel.

[¶15] until the fulness of the Gentiles be--"have"

[¶16] come in--that is, not the general conversion of the world to Christ, as many take it; for this would seem to contradict the latter part of this chapter, and throw the national recovery of Israel too far into the future: besides, in [Ro 11:15], the apostle seems to speak of the receiving of Israel, not as following, but as contributing largely to bring about the general conversion of the world--but, "until the Gentiles have had their full time of the visible Church all to themselves while the Jews are out, which the Jews had till the Gentiles were brought in." (See [Lu 21:24]).

[¶17] 26-27. And so all Israel shall be saved--To understand this great statement, as some still do, merely of such a gradual inbringing of individual Jews, that there shall at length remain none in unbelief, is to do manifest violence both to it and to the whole context. It can only mean the ultimate ingathering of Israel as a nation, in contrast with the present "remnant." (So Tholuck, Meyer, De Wette, Philippi, Alford, Hodge). Three confirmations of this now follow: two from the prophets, and a third from the Abrahamic covenant itself. First, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and

[¶18] shall--or, according to what seems the true reading, without the "and"--"He shall"

[¶19] turn away ungodliness from Jacob--The apostle, having drawn his illustrations of man's sinfulness chiefly from [Psa 14:1-7] and [Is 59:1-21], now seems to combine the language of the same two places regarding Israel's salvation from it [Bengel]. In the one place the Psalmist longs to see the "salvation of Israel coming out of Zion" ([Psa 14:7]); in the other, the prophet announces that "the Redeemer (or, 'Deliverer') shall come to (or 'for') Zion" ([Is 59:20]). But as all the glorious manifestations of Israel's God were regarded as issuing out of Zion, as the seat of His manifested glory ([Psa 20:2]; ; [Is 31:9]), the turn which the apostle gives to the words merely adds to them that familiar idea. And whereas the prophet announces that He "shall come to (or, 'for') them that turn from transgression in Jacob," while the apostle makes Him say that He shall come "to turn away ungodliness from Jacob," this is taken from the Septuagint version, and seems to indicate a different reading of the original text. The sense, however, is substantially the same in both. Second,

[¶20] 28-29. As concerning the Gospel they are enemies for your sakes--that is, they are regarded and treated as enemies (in a state of exclusion through unbelief, from the family of God) for the benefit of you Gentiles; in the sense of [Ro 11:11], .

[¶21] but as touching, the election--of Abraham and his seed.

[¶22] they are beloved--even in their state of exclusion for the fathers' sakes.

[¶23] 30-31. For as ye in times past have not believed--or, "obeyed"

[¶24] God--that is, yielded not to God "the obedience of faith," while strangers to Christ.

[¶25] yet now have obtained mercy through--by occasion of

[¶26] their unbelief--(See on [Ro 11:11]; [Ro 11:15]; [Ro 11:28]).

[¶27] 32. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief--"hath shut them all up to unbelief"

[¶28] that he might have mercy upon all--that is, those "all" of whom he had been discoursing; the Gentiles first, and after them the Jews [Fritzsche, Tholuck, Olshausen, De Wette, Philippi, Stuart, Hodge]. Certainly it is not "all mankind individually" [Meyer, Alford]; for the apostle is not here dealing with individuals, but with those great divisions of mankind, Jew and Gentile. And what he here says is that God's purpose was to shut each of these divisions of men to the experience first of an humbled, condemned state, without Christ, and then to the experience of His mercy in Christ.

[¶29] 33. Oh, the depth, &c.--The apostle now yields himself up to the admiring contemplation of the grandeur of that divine plan which he had sketched out.

[¶30] of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God--Many able expositors render this, "of the riches and wisdom and knowledge," &c. [Erasmus, Grotius, Bengel, Meyer, De Wette, Tholuck, Olshausen, Fritzsche, Philippi, Alford, Revised Version]. The words will certainly bear this sense, "the depth of God's riches." But "the riches of God" is a much rarer expression with our apostle than the riches of this or that perfection of God; and the words immediately following limit our attention to the unsearchableness of God's "judgments," which probably means His decrees or plans ([Psa 119:75]), and of "His ways," or the method by which He carries these into effect. (So Luther, Calvin, Beza, Hodge, &c.). Besides, all that follows to the end of the chapter seems to show that while the Grace of God to guilty men in Christ Jesus is presupposed to be the whole theme of this chapter, that which called forth the special admiration of the apostle, after sketching at some length the divine purposes and methods in the bestowment of this grace, was "the depth of the riches of God's wisdom and knowledge" in these purposes and methods. The "knowledge," then, points probably to the vast sweep of divine comprehension herein displayed; the "wisdom" to that fitness to accomplish the ends intended, which is stamped on all this procedure.

[¶31] 34-35. For who hath known the mind of the Lord?--See [Job 15:8]; [Jr 23:18].

[¶32] or who hath been his counsellor--See [Is 40:13], .

[¶33] 36. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom--"to Him"

[¶34] be glory for ever. Amen--Thus worthily--with a brevity only equalled by its sublimity--does the apostle here sum up this whole matter. "Of Him are all things," as their eternal Source: "THROUGH Him are all things," inasmuch as He brings all to pass which in His eternal counsels He purposed: "To Him are all things," as being His own last End; the manifestation of the glory of His own perfections being the ultimate, because the highest possible, design of all His procedure from first to last.

[¶35] On this rich chapter, Note, (1) It is an unspeakable consolation to know that in times of deepest religious declension and most extensive defection from the truth, the lamp of God has never been permitted to go out, and that a faithful remnant has ever existed--a remnant larger than their own drooping spirits could easily believe ([Ro 11:1-5). (2]) The preservation of this remnant, even as their separation at the first, is all of mere grace ([Ro 11:5], ). () When individuals and communities, after many fruitless warnings, are abandoned of God, they go from bad to worse ([Ro 11:7-10). (4]) God has so ordered His dealings with the great divisions of mankind, "that no flesh should glory in His presence." Gentile and Jew have each in turn been "shut up to unbelief," that each in turn may experience the "mercy" which saves the chief of sinners (Ro 11:11-32). (5) As we are "justified by faith," so are we "kept by the power of God through faith"--faith alone--unto salvation (Ro 11:20-32). (6) God's covenant with Abraham and his natural seed is a perpetual covenant, in equal force under the Gospel as before it. Therefore it is, that the Jews as a nation still survive, in spite of all the laws which, in similar circumstances, have either extinguished or destroyed the identity of other nations. And therefore it is that the Jews as a nation will yet be restored to the family of God, through the subjection of their proud hearts to Him whom they have pierced. And as believing Gentiles will be honored to be the instruments of this stupendous change, so shall the vast Gentile world reap such benefit from it, that it shall be like the communication of life to them from the dead. (7) Thus has the Christian Church the highest motive to the establishment and vigorous prosecution of missions to the Jews; God having not only promised that there shall be a remnant of them gathered in every age, but pledged Himself to the final ingathering of the whole nation assigned the honor of that ingathering to the Gentile Church, and assured them that the event, when it does arrive, shall have a life-giving effect upon the whole world (Ro 11:12-16, 26-31). () Those who think that in all the evangelical prophecies of the Old Testament the terms "Jacob," "Israel," &c., are to be understood solely of the Christian Church, would appear to read the Old Testament differently from the apostle, who, from the use of those very terms in Old Testament prophecy, draws arguments to prove that God has mercy in store for the natural Israel ([Ro 11:26], ). () Mere intellectual investigations into divine truth in general, and the sense of the living oracles in particular, as they have a hardening effect, so they are a great contrast to the spirit of our apostle, whose lengthened sketch of God's majestic procedure towards men in Christ Jesus ends here in a burst of admiration, which loses itself in the still loftier frame of adoration ([Ro 11:33-36]).

### Chapter 12

### Ro 12:1-21. Duties of Believers, General and Particular

[¶38] The doctrinal teaching of this Epistle is now followed up by a series of exhortations to practical duty. And first, the all-comprehensive duty.

[¶39] 1. I beseech you therefore--in view of all that has been advanced in the foregoing part of this Epistle.

[¶40] by the mercies of God--those mercies, whose free and unmerited nature, glorious Channel, and saving fruits have been opened up at such length.

[¶41] that ye present--See on [Ro 6:13], where we have the same exhortation and the same word there rendered "yield" (as also in [Ro 12:16], ).

[¶42] your bodies--that is, "yourselves in the body," considered as the organ of the inner life. As it is through the body that all the evil that is in the unrenewed heart comes forth into palpable manifestation and action, so it is through the body that all the gracious principles and affections of believers reveal themselves in the outward life. Sanctification extends to the whole man ([1Th 5:23], ).

[¶43] a living sacrifice--in glorious contrast to the legal sacrifices, which, save as they were slain, were no sacrifices at all. The death of the one "Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world," has swept all dead victims from off the altar of God, to make room for the redeemed themselves as "living sacrifices" to Him who made "Him to be sin for us"; while every outgoing of their grateful hearts in praise, and every act prompted by the love of Christ, is itself a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savor ([He 13:15], ).

[¶44] holy--As the Levitical victims, when offered without blemish to God, were regarded as holy, so believers, "yielding themselves to God as those that are alive from the dead, and their members as instruments of righteousness unto God," are, in His estimation, not ritually but really "holy," and so