As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
As it is written (Isaiah 8:14 ; Isaiah 28:16 ), behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him - or, less definitely, 'believeth thereon,'
Shall not be ashamed. (On the rendering of this last word, see the note at Romans 10:11.) Two Messianic predictions are here combined, as is not unusual in quotations from the Old Testament. Thus combined, the prediction brings together both the classes of whom the apostle is treating-those to whom Messiah should be only a Stone of stumbling, and those who were to regard Him as the Cornerstone of all their hopes.
Thus expounded, this chapter presents no serious difficulties-none, in fact, which do not arise out of the subject itself, whose depths are unfathomable; whereas on every other view of it the difficulty of giving it any consistent and worthy interpretation is in our judgment insuperable.
Remarks:
(1) On all subjects which from their very nature lie beyond human comprehension, it will be our wisdom to set down what God says in His Word, and has actually done in his procedure toward men, as indisputable, even though it contradict the results at which, in the best exercise of our limited judgment, we may have arrived. To do otherwise-demanding the removal of all difficulties in the divine procedure, as the indispensable condition of our subjection to it-is as unwise as it is impious, driving the inquisitive spirit out of one truth after another, until not a shred even of Natural Religion remains.
(2) What manner of persons ought "God's elect" to be-in humility-when they remember that He hath saved them and called them, not according to their works, but according to His own purpose and grace, given them in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Timothy 1:9); in thankfulness, for "Who maketh thee to differ, and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" (1 Corinthians 4:7;) in godly jealousy over themselves, remembering that "God is not mocked," but "whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap" (Galatians 6:7); in "diligence to make our calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10); and yet in calm confidence, that "whom God predestinates, and calls, and justifies, them (in due time) He also glorifies" (Romans 8:30).
(3) Sincerity in religion, or a general desire to be saved, with assiduous efforts to do right, will prove fatal as a ground of confidence before God, if unaccompanied by implicit submission to His revealed method of salvation (Rom. 10:31-33).
(4) In the rejection of the great mass of the chosen people, and the inbringing of multitudes of estranged Gentiles, God would have men to see a law of His procedure which the judgment of the great day will more vividly reveal-that "the last shall be first, and the first last" (Matthew 20:16).