A stumblingstone— What the unbelieving Jews stumbled at, St. Peter informs us, 1 Epist. Romans 2:8. They stumbled at the word: they were disgusted at the Gospel: the word which Christ and his Apostles preached, did not please them. It contradicted all their preconceived opinions; and, instead of continuing them to be the onlyvisible church of God in all the world, and their law and religious ceremonies the only rule of a place and interest in the peculiar kingdom of God upon earth, it entirely abolished the law in this respect; and freely took men of any nation into the peculiar kingdom of God, without any regard to the law of Moses, only upon faith in Christ. This was the word,—the word of universal grace, at which the Jews stumbled. See Isaiah 8:14; Isaiah 28:16. 1 Corinthians 1:23 and Whitby.
Inferences.—Let the affection which the Apostle expresses for the Jews, his countrymen and brethren according to the flesh, and the tender and pathetic representation that he makes of the privileges which they once enjoyed, awaken in our hearts an earnest solicitude, that they may by divine grace be brought back; that they may again be adopted into the family from which they have been cut off, again clothed with the glory which is departed from them; that, through him who was given for a covenant to the people, they may receive the law of life and grace, be formed to that spiritual service which it introduces, instead of their pompous ritual, and embrace the promises on which the faith and hope of their illustrious fathers were fixed.
Let it likewise teach us spiritual compassion for our kindred, who are strangers to Christ, and let us be willing to submit to the greatest difficulties, and think nothing too much to be done or borne for their recovery.
Let our souls pay a humble homage to him who is, in such an incommunicable and sublime sense, the Son of God, as to be himself over all, God blessed for evermore. With prostrate reverence let us adore him, as our Lord, and our God, and repose that unbounded confidence in him which such an assemblage of divine perfections will warrant, putting our most hearty amen to every ascription of glory, to every anthem of praise, addressed to him.
And since we see that many of the children of Abraham, and of Isaac, failed of any share in the special promises of God, let us learn to depend on no privilege of birth, on no relation to the greatest and best of men. May we seek to be inserted into the family of God, by his adopting love in Christ Jesus, and to maintain the lively exercise of faith; without which no child of Abraham was ever acceptable to God, and with which none of the children of strangers have ever failed of a share in his mercy and favour.
Let us also learn humbly to adore the righteousness and holiness of God, in all the most amazing displays of his sovereignty, which we are sure are always consistent with it. Let us own his right to confer on whom he pleases, those favours which none of us can pretend to have deserved. He has of his mere goodness given us those privileges, as Christians, and as Protestants, which he has withheld from most nations under heaven. Let us adore his distinguishing favour to us, and arrogate nothing to ourselves.
Long did his patience wait on us; and let that patience be for ever adored! It shall be glorified even in those that perish: for he is so far from destroying innocent creatures by a mere arbitrary act of power and terror, that he endureth with much long-suffering, those who by their own incorrigible wickedness prove vessels of wrath, and whom the whole assembled world shall confess fitted for the destruction to which they shall finally be consigned. That after long abuse of mercy they are hardened, and perhaps after long hardness are at length destroyed: yea, that some of the vilest of men are exalted by Providence to a station that makes their crimes conspicuous, as those of Pharaoh, till at length he shews forth his power the more awefully, and makes his name the more illustrious by their ruin, is certainly consistent with that justice which the Judge of the whole earth will never violate.
But if, in tracing subjects of this kind, difficulties arise beyond the stretch of our feeble thought, let us remember that we are men, and let us not dare to reply against God. Retiring into our own ignorance and weakness, as those that are less than nothing, and vanity, before him, let us dread by any arrogant censure to offend him who has so uncontrollable a power over us. As clay in the hand of the potter, so are we in the hand of the Lord our God. Let us acquiesce in the form that he has given us, in the rank that he has assigned us; and, instead of perplexing ourselves about those secrets of his counsels which it is impossible for us to penetrate, let us endeavour to purify ourselves from whatever would displease him; that so we may, in our respective stations, be vessels of honour, fit for the use of our Master now, and entitled to the promise of being acknowledged as his, in that glorious day when he shall make up his jewels.
How can we sinners of the Gentiles ever sufficiently acknowledge the goodness of God to us, in calling us to that full participation of Gospel-blessings which we enjoy! That in our native lands, where the name of the true God was so long unknown, we should have the honour of being called his children! Oh, that we may indeed be so, not only by an external profession, but by regenerating grace!
Blessed be God that there is a seed remaining! It is the preservation of the people among which it is found; and had it not been found among us, we had probably long since been made a seat of desolation. May it increase in the rising age, that the pledges of our continued peace and prosperity may be more assured, till our peace be like a river, and our salvation like the waves of the sea.
It will be so, if we be awakened seriously to inquire how we may be justified before God, and seek that invaluable blessing in the way here pointed out; if we seek it, not as by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ. He has, in this respect, been to many a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence. May divine grace teach us the necessity of building upon him, of resting upon him the whole stress of our eternal hopes! Then shall they not sink into disappointment and ruin; then shall we not flee away ashamed in that aweful day, when the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters of that final deluge of divine wrath shall overflow every hiding-place, but that which God has prepared for us in his own Son.
REFLECTIONS.—1st, The Jewish bigots looked upon St. Paul as a signal apostate, and persecuted him with peculiar virulence and enmity. He wished therefore to soften their exasperated spirits, while he makes profession of his own tender concern for their welfare and salvation. And there is a peculiar propriety in his introduction, when we consider the offensive truths which he was about to advance.
1. He makes a solemn protestation of the very fervent regard that he bore towards them. I say the truth in Christ, solemnly appealing to him who is the Searcher of hearts, and knoweth that I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost to the simplicity and sincerity of what I am going to say, that, far from entertaining the least prejudice or ill-will against my countrymen, I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart, feeling the acutest pangs of grief, when I think of their fearful condition, and what must be the inevitable consequences of their unbelief. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, (αναθεμα) content to be cut off from all my privileges as an Apostle, and to be separated from the society of the faithful with shame and disgrace, yea, to undergo the most ignominious and tormenting death, for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
2. He mentions the distinguished privileges with which they had been favoured of God, which could not but make their rejection peculiarly grievous to him: who are Israelites, bearing the name of their eminent progenitor Jacob; to whom pertaineth the adoption, taken into that covenant of peculiarity in which God regarded the whole nation as his visible church, Exodus 4:22 and the glory, the ark, the Shechinah, the mercy-seat, the tokens and emblems of the divine presence in the midst of them; and the covenants, the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham, and renewed with Isaac and Jacob, and that of Sinai with the whole body of Israel; and the giving of the law, containing God's ordinances, moral, judicial, and ceremonial; and the service of God, in what manner his worship should be performed; and the promises, of temporal prosperity, and of the Messiah and his great salvation; whose are the fathers, the descendants of the famed patriarchs; and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, the promised seed of Abraham, in his human nature; but who, in his divine, is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen! Note; The divinity of our incarnate Saviour is a chief article of our creed. Thereon depends the perfection of his Atonement on our behalf.
2nd, Grief for his unhappy countrymen filled the Apostle's heart: but, though the generality of them perished, the promise made to Abraham would not be frustrated. He would not therefore have them suppose as though the word of God had taken none effect, and failed of its accomplishment, because they believed not. For they are not all Israel, true Israelites, and savingly interested in the spiritual blessings of the covenant, which are of Israel, the offspring of Jacob; neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children of God, as they flattered themselves. But I have enlarged so fully on these points in my Critical Notes, that I shall refer my readers to them, rather than run the hazard of being tedious. I will only just observe,
3rdly, That the Apostle, having proved the rejection of the Jews and the calling of the Gentiles, suggests also the reason. What shall we say then, farther in vindication of God's justice and free grace in these dispensations? It is evident, that the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have notwithstanding attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, being accepted of God through faith in Christ Jesus: but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, and sought justification before God by their own obedience, hath not attained to the law of righteousness, not being capable of performing that immaculate righteousness which the law demands, and therefore being left under the curse as transgressors. Wherefore have they not attained? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law, placing their dependence upon their own doings and duties, either in part, or in the whole, for their acceptance with God: for they stumbled at that stumbling-stone, the crucified Galilean, whose lowly appearance offended them, and they could not think of embracing him as their Messiah: As it is written in Isaiah, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone, and rock of offence, that Messiah who should be the tried stone and sure foundation to those who believed, and would to those who rejected him be as the rock which dashes those to pieces who fall thereon: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed: though the generality perish in their impenitence and unbelief, yet those who dare perseveringly trust him for pardon, life, and salvation, shall never be disappointed of their hopes, but find him a Saviour to the uttermost. Note; Nothing is so fatal to the soul as dependence upon our own righteousness, either in the whole or in part, for acceptance with God; while those who, self-despairing, fly to the righteousness of faith revealed in the Gospel, are sure to be justified from all things, and, if they continue in this faith, which always works by love, shall be saved with an everlasting salvation.