For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy.
The memory of the past should
1. Promote humility.
2. Awaken gratitude.
3. Soften our censures.
4. Strengthen our hopes of others. (T. Robinson, D.D.)
Mercy for the Jew
I. We have received mercy--
1. Unmerited.
2. Free.
3. Through the unbelief of Israel.
II. We must show mercy--
1. As an expression of gratitude.
2. A debt of justice.
3. A Christian duty. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The gospel given to us as a deposit for the Jews
Observe--
I. The mysterious way is which God has dispensed His blessings to mankind--first the Jew, then the Gentile; all Israel, then the fulness of the Gentiles. The mysteriousness of this plan--delay, partial bestowment, transfer, final restoration.
II. The design of it.
1. To provoke the Jews to jealousy.
2. To provoke the Christian world to love. (J. Lyth, D. D.)
The last argument to prove the conversion and general calling of the Jews
The argument is taken from the like dealing of God with the Gentiles. The impiety of the Gentiles was no impediment to their mercy, neither shall the infidelity of the Jews to theirs.
I. The Gentiles were Infidels (Ephesians 2:12), but by the unbelief of the Jews they are received to mercy.
1. Forget not what thou wert, for we have all fun the race of the prodigal son. It is God’s grace if it be otherwise with thee now. Be thankful. How if God had taken thee away in thy sins? Let this bind thee to thy good behaviour for ever (1 Timothy 1:15; cf. Titus 3:8).
2. Faith is a sweet mercy, so is the Word of God, the means of that faith. Alas for them which, having the means of faith, yet contemn the same!
3. Sin breeds sorrow, and many times sorrow kills the sin which bred it, as a worm breeding in timber consumes it. So the sin of the Jews works to the good of the Gentiles by the goodness of God. Gregory the Great calls the sin of Adam happy, because it was the occasion of salvation; so in some sort may we say of the unbelief of the Jews.
4. God forbid that we should lightly esteem the grace God offers us, it coming unto us at so dear a rate as is the casting off of His people.
5. When we were infidels, God showed us mercy; much more will He be merciful to us now we believe.
II. The Jews are now in an estate of unbelief, but they shall be received to mercy (Isaiah 46:4; Jeremiah 24:6-7).
1. There is yet mercy for the Jews, by the example of the like mercy to the Gentiles. But it is now sixteen hundred years ago since they were cast off; is it likely that after so long time they should be called? Yes; for the Gentiles lay longer under their infidelities, yet at last received grace.
2. Faith is not in the power of man, nor can any means effect it without God’s blessing. One would think that this long affliction of the Jews might make them cry peccavi, beside other means God hath afforded them. In trouble, then, pray it may be sanctified to thy profit. Pray also for a blessing on the Word, else it will be unprofitable, though the preacher were a son of thunder.
3. Carry thyself meekly toward a Jew, and toward unbelievers among ourselves, considering thyself, who wert in the same condemnation. Judge not thy neighbour for damned; He that converted thee can in His good time convert him also. Play the physician to thy neighbour’s soul; show him of the mercy thou hast received, that he also may be stirred up to seek to Him who is merciful. God gave Paul consolation in distress, that he might comfort others; so if He give thee knowledge, faith, etc., use them in like manner.
4. Who, then, is the better for thy gifts? The Jew compasseth sea and land to make a proselyte. The Jesuits wind themselves like serpents into every place to make a papist. Drunkards and other ungodly persons seek to draw others to their practices.
5. Let the Jew follow the faith of the Gentile, so do thou the example of good Christians among whom thou livest. It is a great furtherance to godliness to have an example to the rule. It is a help to the scholar to have a copy to write by, but a greater furtherance to his profiting to see his master make the letters. (Elnathan Parr, B.D.)
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.--
All are shut up in unbelief
I. How?
1. By nature.
2. By providence--first the Gentile, then the Jew.
3. By the appointment of eternal justice.
II. Why?
1. That God’s mercy.
2. To all.
3. Might be more gloriously manifested.
III. In what way this Divine arrangement contributes to such a result.
1. By convincing man of his sinfulness and utter helplessness.
2. By preparing him for the reception of mercy. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Why God locked up (so to speak) Gentiles and Jews in the prison of unbelief
1. That their salvation might be manifestly seen to be by grace.
2. That self-righteous boasting might be excluded.
3. That men might duly appreciate the blessings of His redemptive love.
4. That scope might be afforded for the full display of His mercy. (C. Neil, M.A.)
Man’s unbelief and God’s mercy
Here is an elegant similitude. Men unconverted are prisoners--God the Judge, unbelief the prison, the devil the gaoler, the law the sergeant, and natural corruption the fetters.
I. God hath shut up all in unbelief. This is the common condition of all men (Romans 3:9; Romans 3:19, Romans 3:23; Galatians 3:22).
1. Paul hath in the passage of this business ten times told us of our miserable condition by nature. Here we are poor sinners; it is our part to take knowledge of our corrupt nature.
2. Great is the misery that accompanies imprisonment, restraint of liberty, hunger, cold, shame, chains, but no dungeon more loathsome than an unbelieving heart. Oh that we could be sensible of it, that we might sigh to God for deliverance, as did the Israelites in Egypt. When a man is arrested, what lamenting among his friends: but our very souls are imprisoned in the worst of prisons, under the worst of gaolers, and yet we are merry, as though it were but a trifle.
3. We may know whether we be yet in this prison by two things.
(1) By faith in God. Hast thou this? If not, there needs no jury to find thee guilty: thou art in the very bottom of the dungeon. But thou sayest there is a God. Thy life condemns thee, for thou actest as if there were no God.
(2) By faith in His Word. The Scripture threatens ungodly men with the plagues of God, and promiseth eternal life to the godly. Did men believe this, durst they run on in all profaneness?
II. That He might have mercy on all (Galatians 3:22).
1. Our salvation is of mere mercy, but it is a hard thing to be brought to acknowledge it. The Gentiles were 2,000 years before they could learn this lesson, and the Jews have been 1,600 about it, and yet have not learned it; yea, there are many amongst us that cannot say this lesson right. Most men hope to be saved by their prayers and good serving God; we are loth to lose the commendation of our own goodness.
2. Jews and Gentiles should live together, seeing they are both in one prison for one end, and set free by one and the same mercy.
3. If any be set free, it is by the mercy of God, who hath the key of our unbelieving hearts, doth open and shut them at His pleasure. As a man committed by the king can be set free by none but the king, so God committed us, and none can set us free but Himself. Cry, therefore, to the Lord for mercy.
4. There are two notes whereby we may discern whether we be released out of the prison or no.
(1) Our joy. A liberated prisoner leaps and dances, so as no ground will hold him; so birds and beasts escaping from their restraint scud about, as sensible of the sweetness of liberty.
(2) Our carefulness not to commit anything that may bring us into such bondage. So he that believeth the pardon of sin will for ever hate sin. For the most part, prisoners are of wicked behaviour; so if thy conversation be lewd, it is a manifest sign thou art not yet delivered. (Elnathan Parr, B.D.)