CRITICAL NOTES
Romans 10:20.—εὑρέθην, I was found; used of God when exciting men by His benefits to seek and worship Him.
Romans 10:21.—Eben Ezra informs us that Moses Hacoben said Romans 10:20 is to be understood of the nations of the world, as if it had been said, I am found of nations which are not called by My name, but to My people have I stretched out My hands; and so the apostle interprets and applies the words here. ἀντιλέγοντα.—The very word used by the Jews at Rome to describe the treatment received by the gospel from themselves—i.e., gainsaying. Moses declares that a despised nation may become beloved.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Romans 10:18-21
Rejected Israel without excuse.—St. Paul, while establishing his own argument, throws blame upon Israel. If the new gospel be so good, and if it have been widely preached, why so little reception? Old questions which are still being asked. St. Paul shows that rejection is in harmony with prophetic utterance. Rejecters disobey to their own damage, and will be left without excuse. The word is preached, the blessed sound goes forth, but Israel rejects. The preacher must do his work, though few be saved. The preacher must hold on his course, though moderns say, Why all this preaching? We know as much as the preacher. If they know, they do not evidence their knowledge by their practice. If they know and do, let them support the preacher who carries the message of life to the not-knowing ones. If they know, let them listen to the preacher who strives to extend their knowledge, to quicken the heart. Perhaps we need more heart work in these days. Emotional preachers may have a special work in these times of increasing knowledge.
I. Divine wooing.—A strange reversion. God woos man, and man should woo God. The prophet represents God as standing with stretched-forth hands. The prophet is here strongly anthropomorphic. The eternal Spirit is likened unto a human father or mother stretching forth hands to a wayward child. Does not the divine Prophet teach somewhat of the same in the parable of the prodigal son? The eternal Father sends out His love to woo back the prodigals from their wretchedness. Love sends forth its messengers. As the heavens and their hosts proclaim God’s existence and perfections to the whole universe, and, mute as they are, make their voices re-echo in the hearts of all men, so, says St. Paul, with a sort of enthusiasm at the memory of his own ministry, the voice of the preachers of the gospel has sounded in all countries and in all the cities of the world.
II. Divine retaliation.—The law of nature is the law of God. Like is returned by like. Reject the good, and the good rejects; reject the Stone of salvation, and it becomes a stone of destruction. “On whomsoever this stone shall fall,” etc. “I will provoke you to jealousy.” Strong expressions from the mouth of infinite Love. A foolish nation will anger an over-wise, a self-righteous, and a confident nation. How often the no-people anger the people of high looks and lofty mien! As the wheel of time turns the nobodies become the somebodies, even in social spheres. Foolish nations become the ruling nations. God’s fools will reign everlastingly. Israel rejects, and Israel is forsaken. The Church leaves its first works, and the candlestick is removed out of its place. Let modern Churches take warning. We sometimes fear that the divine candle is not burning brightly in our modern Christianity. Awful will be the doom if Anglo-Saxon Israel is provoked to jealousy by them that are no-people, and moved to anger by a foolish nation being blessed.
III. Divine satisfaction.—Eternal love must be satisfied. It must find a people on whom to bestow its caresses. Jesus must see of the travail of His soul. If His own people reject, He will find believers among the Gentiles. Israel knew this, and cannot complain. If Israel were blessed with the largeness of divine love, it would not seek to complain. But oh the narrowness of humanity! The missionary spirit is of slow growth, and seldom reaches large size in our selfish human nature. How little gratification we really receive from the news that nations are being born into the spiritual kingdom! The nearer we get to the divine, the gladder we shall be that Christ is found of them who sought Him not, that He is made manifest unto those that asked not after Him. Let us pray for largeness of love. Let us seek to be all-inclusive, world-embracing, in our spiritual desires. Light diffused is light increased. The missionary spirit has reflex blessings. Doing good to others, we do good to ourselves.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Romans 10:18-21
God has not failed in His part.—It is not God who has failed in His part. No; they who have not-believed (the majority of Israel) cannot excuse themselves by saying that the mission, which is an essential condition of faith, was not carried out in their case. There is not a synagogue which has not been filled with it, not a Jew in the world who can justly plead ignorance on the subject. Μὴ οὐκ ἤκουσαν: “It is not, however, the case that they have not heard, is it?” Evidently the apostle is speaking of those who have not believed, consequently of the Jews. How can Origen and Calvin think here of the Gentiles? It is the case of the Jews which is being pleaded. The pronoun αὐτῶν, their (voice), refers not to the subject of the previous sentence, but to that of the sentence of the psalm quoted by Paul: the heavens. No one certainly will think that Paul meant here to give the explanation of this passage; it is an application of the psalmist’s words, which is still freer than that made of the passage from Deuteronomy in Romans 10:6-8. The apostle has just advanced, and then refuted, a first excuse which might be alleged in favour of the Jews; he proposes a second, the insufficiency of which he will also demonstrate.—Godet.
A foolish nation and an impious nation identical.—“By a foolish nation I will anger you.” This is a repetition of the same sentiment. By a “foolish” nation is to be understood an “impious” or “idolatrous” nation. The worshipping of idols being one of the grossest follies of which rational beings can be guilty, idolaters are called in Jewish Scriptures “a foolish people,” and the meaning of the words is this: “By receiving into the number of any Church and people the Gentiles who have been accustomed to the worship only of idols, I will excite the anger and envy of the Jews.” And that at the commencement of the Christian era this prediction was fulfilled, both by the reception of the Gentiles into the Church of God, and by the jealousy and anger which this extension of the means of salvation produced among the Jews, is amply verified by the history. Thus when Paul preached the word of God to the Gentiles of Antioch, in compliance with their earnest request, the Jews, we are told, “when they saw the multitudes that came together, were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.” And when they found no other means of preventing the apostles from preaching to the Gentiles, they raised a persecution against them, and expelled them out of their coasts.—Ritchie.
The gospel like a light shining in darkness.—When the gospel comes, it is like a light rising upon the darkness, and dispelling it: it is light unanticipated, unsought. Jehovah came to the Gentiles by the gospel, like a person paying an unlooked-for visit—an unknown stranger arriving suddenly. The whole language of God by the prophet evidently conveys the idea of previous ignorance and sudden manifestation; and this manifestation followed by the finding, on the part of those to whom the discovery is made, of Him by whom it is made. The idea of suddenness is strongly expressed by the words, “I am found of them that sought Me not.” The finding is not represented as the result of a long process of previous seeking—of “feeling after” God. The Gentiles, immersed in all the ignorance and stupid sottishness of their idolatries, received the “knowledge of the only true God and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent,” as a prisoner who had been long immured in the gloom of a dungeon, without a ray of light, and to whom darkness had become so familiar that he had given up thinking of anything else, would receive the beams of heaven, on the window being suddenly opened that had been closed and fastened with bars of iron.—Dr. Wardlaw.