Holy Bible

Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Romans 10:1-13 Paul's desire and prayer T. Chalmers, D.D. I. PREDESTINATION SHOULD BE NO BARRIER IN THE WAY OF PRAYER. The text derives a special interest from the very position which it occupies. He who saw the farthest into the counsels of the Divinity above, saw nothing there which should affect either the diligence or the devotions of any humble worshipper below. However indelibly the ultimate futurities of man are written in the book of heaven, this should not foreclose but rather stimulate his prayers. Let us quit arduous speculation, and keep by obvious duty — taking our lesson from Paul, who, though just alighted from the daring ascents among the past ordinations of the Godhead, forthwith busies himself among the plain and the present duties of the humble Christian. Theology has its altitudes shooting upwardly to heaven till lost in the cloudy envelopment which surrounds them. Yet there is a clear path which winds around its basement, and by which the lowliest of Zion's travellers may find an ascending way that will land him in a place of purest transparency, where he shall know even as he is known. II. UNLESS THE DESIRE OF THE HEART GOES BEFORE IT, IT IS NO PRAYER AT ALL. The virtue does not lie in the articulation, but altogether in the wish which prompts it. It is thus that we can pray without ceasing. In the case of prayer, God has committed Himself to the amplest promises of fulfilment; but He is not pledged to the accomplishment of any prayer where the desire of the heart does not originate the utterance of the mouth. The want of such desire nullifies the prayer; and to imagine otherwise would be to countenance the superstition that a religious service consists in mere ceremonial. Be assured of this and of every other ordinance of Christianity, that, unless impregnated with life and meaning, it is but a body without a soul — a mere service which the hand can perform, but which the heart with all its high functions has no share in. It stands in the same relation of inferiority to genuine religion that the drudgery of an animal does to the devotion of a seraph. In one word, if in the doing of any ordinance there be not the intercourse of mind with mind, there substantially is nothing; and yet we fear it to be just such a nothingness as is yielded by many who are regular in prayer, and who walk with decency and order through the rounds of a sacrament. III. THE SUBJECT OF THE PRAYER. "That Israel might be saved." 1. It is not all desire that will meet with acceptance in heaven, for the same Scripture which holds out the promise of "ask, and ye shall receive," has also held out the warning that many ask and receive not "because they ask amiss." 2. Still, Scripture does furnish the principles by which to discriminate the warrantable from the unwarrantable, and so classifies the topics of prayer. It is written "that if we ask any thing according to His will He heareth us." This does not confer a sanction upon every suit, but certainly upon a vast number of them. Thus, surely, every petition in the Lord's Prayer may be preferred with utmost confidence; and so it is that while we have no warrant to pray for this world's riches, we have a perfect warrant to pray for daily bread. The same principle of agreeableness to the will of God sustains our faith, when praying for the salvation of ourselves or others, being expressly told that God willeth such intercessions to be made for all men, and on this ground too that He willeth all men to be saved. 3. So near does God bring salvation to us that there is no obstacle between our sincere wish for it and our secure possession of it. At least there is but one stepping-stone between them; and that is prayer. And so let us ask till we receive — let us seek till we find — let us knock till the door of salvation is opened to us. IV. THE WHOLE EXTENT AND IMPORT OF THE TERM SALVATION. 1. Its common acceptance is a deliverance from the penalty of sin. Whereas, additionally to this, it signifies deliverance from sin itself. "He shall be called Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins" — save them from a great deal more than the torment of sin's penalty, even from the tyranny of sin's power. The first secures for the sinner a change of place, the second a change of principle. This last is the constituting essence of salvation; the other more the accompaniment. The one takes place after death. The other takes place now. 2. The legitimate desire, then, which should animate the heart when the mouth utters a prayer for salvation is for a future happiness, but also for a present holiness. Man might like to be put into a state of happiness without holiness; but God does not like that such a happiness shall be conferred upon him. It is most assuredly not God's will that heaven should be peopled with any but those who are of the same family likeness with Himself. He loves the happiness of His creatures, but He loves their virtue more. And so from Paradise all that offendeth shall be rooted out. Now remember that in praying to be saved, you just pray that such a heaven may be the place of your settlement through all eternity. Else there is no significancy in your prayer. It is not enough that you seize by faith on a deed of justification. You must enter forthwith on a busy process of sanctification. Now that a way for the ransomed of the Lord is open, let us forget not that it is a way of holiness. There is a work of salvation going on in heaven, and by which Jesus Christ is there employed in preparing a place for us. But there is also a work of salvation going on in earth, and by which Jesus Christ through His Word and Spirit is here employed in preparing us for the place. And our distinct business is to be ever practising and ever improving ourselves in the virtues of this preparation. This desire for salvation, then, if rightly understood, is desire for a present holiness. V. BUT THIS IS AN INTERCESSORY PRAYER, and suggests what we ought to do for the salvation of those who are dear to us. Paul had made many a vain effort for the salvation of his countrymen; but after every effort failed, still he had recourse to prayer. The desire of his heart was not extinguished by the disappointment he met with. 1. This might serve as admonition to those whose hearts are set on the salvation of relatives or friends — to the mother who has watched and laboured for years that the good seed might have future in the hearts of her children, but does not find that this precious deposit has yet settled or had occupation there, etc ., etc . Let them never forget, that what has heretofore been impracticable to performance may not be impracticable to prayer. With man it may be impossible; but with God all things are possible. That cause which has so oft been defeated and is now hopeless on the field of exertion, may on the field of prayer and of faith be triumphant. God willeth intercessions to be made for all men, and He willeth all men to be saved. These declarations place you on firm and high vantage-ground in praying for souls. This, however, is a matter on which parents may delude themselves. They may be glad to stand exonerated from the fatigues of performance, and take refuge in the formalities of prayer. That prayer never can avail which is not the prayer of honesty, and it is not the prayer of honesty if, even though you pray to the uttermost for the religion of others, you do not also perform to the uttermost. ( T. Chalmers, D.D. )

Benson Commentary Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Romans 10:1-3 . Brethren, my heart’s desire, &c. — Here the apostle proceeds to show the cause of that rejection of the Jews which he had spoken of in the preceding chapter, namely, their rejecting that way of obtaining righteousness and salvation appointed by God. And lest they should suppose he spoke out of prejudice and ill-will to them, he professes his earnest desire for their salvation. And my prayer to God for Israel is, that they may be saved — He would not have prayed for this had they been absolutely reprobated. For I bear them record — I am ready to testify, from what I well know of them from my own observation and experience; that they — That is, many of them; have a zeal of God — A zeal for that worship and service of him instituted by Moses, by which they think to promote his glory; but not according to knowledge — Not directed by a proper acquaintance with the true way of becoming righteous, nor of the design of the law. Their zeal was like that of those mentioned John 16:2 , who, as Christ predicted, would put his disciples out of the synagogues, and think they did God service by killing them; or like that of Paul, mentioned Php 3:6 . For being ignorant of God’s righteousness — Of the purity of his nature, and the spirituality and extent of his holy law, and of the method of becoming righteous appointed by him: and going about — That is, striving; to establish their own righteousness — The merit of their own works as the ground of their justification, and hope of salvation; have not submitted themselves — Have not complied with, but rejected; the righteousness of God — The way of becoming righteous which he hath established. Romans 10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. Romans 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. Romans 10:4 . For — That they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of becoming righteous is evident in this, that they reject Christ, by whom alone righteousness can be obtained; Christ is the end of the law — The scope and aim of it; for righteousness — Observe, 1st, The righteousness here spoken of is evidently that which is necessary in order to eternal life, and leads to it, (see Romans 5:21 ,) termed the righteousness of God by faith, Php 3:9 ; implying not only justification, Romans 3:24 , Titus 3:7 , without which we, guilty, condemned sinners, can have no title to eternal life, it being the only means of cancelling our guilt, and freeing us from condemnation; but also sanctification, spoken of Ephesians 4:17-24 , Titus 2:5-6 , without which we are not in Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:17 , and have no fitness for heaven; and practical obedience consequent thereon, Ephesians 2:10 , the grand evidence that we are righteous, Luke 1:6 , 1 John 3:7 . 2d, This righteousness, in these three branches of it, is not attainable by the law, moral or ceremonial; not by the former, because it finds us guilty of violating its spiritual and holy precepts, and has no pardon to give us; it finds us depraved, weak, and helpless, and has neither a new nature nor supernatural aid to impart. But may we not have the help we want from the ceremonial law? Cannot the sacrifices of it remove our guilt? No. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats, &c., to take away sin, Hebrews 10:4 , &c. Cannot the various washings or purifications of it renew and cleanse our souls? No: they can only remove the filth of the flesh, Hebrews 9:13 ; 1 Peter 3:21 . Cannot the various institutions respecting meats and drinks, and the observance of days, &c., assist us to attain practical righteousness or obedience? No: as they do not make the tree good, of course the fruit cannot be good; as they do not purify the fountain, the streams issuing thence cannot be pure, Matthew 7:16-19 . But, 3d. This righteousness may be found by us in Christ; the end, or the final cause, for which the law was instituted; the moral law being chiefly intended to convince men of sin, namely, of their guilt, depravity, and weakness, and thus to be a school- master to bring them to Christ; Galatians 3:19-24 ; and the ceremonial, to shadow forth and exhibit his sacrifice and grace. Accordingly the law points to Christ, and directs the sinner to have recourse to him for all the different branches of righteousness above mentioned, which cannot be obtained by it, but may be had in and by Christ; namely, justification, through his obedience unto death, whereby he hath removed the curse of the moral law, being made a curse for us; and regeneration, or a new creation, with the practical righteousness proceeding therefrom, through his grace and Spirit; the information and direction, in the way of duty, afforded by his doctrine and example, and the motives to obedience furnished by his precepts, promises, and threatenings, co-operating as means to produce the same blessed effects. But, 4th, To whom is Christ thus the end of the law for righteousness? To every one — Whether Jew or Gentile; (see Romans 10:11-15 ;) that believeth — Namely, with the faith described Romans 10:5 , &c. So that the very end and design of the law was to bring men to believe in Christ, whom it exhibited and pointed out, for justification, renovation, and universal holiness. Romans 10:5 For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Romans 10:5 . For Moses describeth the righteousness of the law — The only way of becoming righteous by the law, when he saith, The man that doeth these things shall live by them — Not only a happy life in the land of Canaan, but in heaven, of which Canaan was a type and figure: (see on Leviticus 18:5 .) That is, he who perfectly keeps all these precepts in every point, he alone may claim life and salvation by them. For though the law directs to a better and more effectual righteousness in Christ, yet in itself, considered as a law, abstracted from its respect to Christ and the gospel, (for so the unbelieving Jews embraced and adhered to it,) it acknowledges nothing as a righteousness, sufficient to justify a man, but that of perfect obedience; a way of justification impossible to any who have ever transgressed any one law in any point. As if the apostle had said, Moses, by showing that the law requires exact and perfect obedience for righteousness, (an obedience impossible to be performed by us in our fallen state,) may thereby convince us that righteousness is not to be attained by our own works, but only by faith in Christ. It may be proper to observe here, that although the law, which was given from Sinai, was not, strictly speaking, a covenant of works, or of mere justice, (for who then could have been saved under that dispensation?) yet, that it might more effectually bring men to Christ, and render the covenant of grace more acceptable, it had a great mixture of the strictness and terror of such a covenant. Accordingly it condemned notorious offenders to temporal death in many cases, and made no provision for the pardon of any sin, deliberately and wilfully committed against it. See Hebrews 10:28 . It, however, contained some further discoveries of that covenant of grace, which was made with mankind after the fall, by which many had been saved during the patriarchal ages, and which had been solemnly and repeatedly renewed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Romans 10:6 But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above :) Romans 10:6-9 . Blot the righteousness which is of faith — The method of becoming righteous by believing; speaketh — A very different language from that of the law, and may be considered as expressing itself thus; (to accommodate to our present subject the words which Moses spake touching the plainness of his law:) Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? as if it were to bring Christ down — To teach and instruct us, or to atone for our offences. “The Jews, it would seem, thought it not reasonable to believe on Jesus as the Christ, unless he was brought from heaven in a visible manner, to take possession of his kingdom:” which some think was the sign from heaven which they expected, Matthew 16:1 . Or, Who shall descend into the deep? — Into the grave, as if it were to bring up Christ again from the dead — Do not imagine that these things are now to be done in order to prove Jesus to be the true Messiah, or to confirm his doctrine. “The Jews expected that the Messiah would abide with them for ever, John 12:34 . Wherefore, when the disciples saw Jesus expire on the cross, they gave up all hope of his being the Christ: Luke 24:21 , We trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel. It is true, the objection taken from Christ’s death was fully removed by his resurrection. But the Jews, pretending not to have sufficient proof of that miracle, insisted that Jesus should appear in person among them, to convince them that he was really risen. This they expressed by one’s descending into the abyss to bring Christ up from the dead.” — Macknight. But what saith it — Namely, the gospel, or righteousness of faith: what is its language? Even these words, so remarkably applicable to the subject before us. All is done ready to thy hand. The word is nigh thee — Within thy reach; easy to be understood, remembered, practised; in thy mouth and in thy heart — Let thy mouth and heart perform the offices assigned them and thou shalt be saved; that is, the word of faith — The doctrine of the gospel, which teaches men to believe in Christ for salvation, Romans 1:16-17 ; which we preach — Which we, the apostles and ministers of Christ, declare to you, and exhort you to embrace. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus — Shalt make a free confession of thy faith in Christ and his truths, both by words and deeds, even in the time of persecution, when such a confession would expose thee to imprisonment, torture, and martyrdom: and shalt believe in thy heart — Sincerely, and with a faith that influences thy heart, and worketh by love; that God hath raised him from the dead — And thereby demonstrated him to be the Messiah; manifested the certain truth and infinite importance of his doctrine; the acceptableness and efficacy of the atonement which he made for sin; hath broken the power of death, and ensured to his followers an immortal life; as also the Holy Spirit to prepare them for it, by raising them from the death of sin to the life of righteousness: thou shalt be saved — From sin here, and its consequences hereafter. “The apostle mentions the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, as the principal article to be believed in order to salvation, because by that miracle God demonstrated Jesus to be his Son, established his authority as a lawgiver, and rendered all the things which he taught and promised indubitable.” — Macknight. Romans 10:7 Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) Romans 10:8 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Romans 10:10 . For with the heart — Not with the understanding only; man believeth unto righteousness — So as to obtain justification, regeneration, and holiness, in all its branches; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation — So as to obtain eternal salvation. For if we so believe in Christ as to become truly righteous, and manifest that we are so by confessing him to be the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, when such a confession might deprive us of our property, our liberty, and our lives, we must, of course, love him better than any or all of these things; and therefore we willingly part with them for his sake. And being thus crucified to the world, and all visible and temporal things, our affections will be set on things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God: and consequently, when he shall appear we shall appear with him in glory. “In the first ages, the spreading of the gospel depended, in a great measure, on Christ’s disciples confessing him openly before the world, and on their sealing their confession with their blood. Hence Christ required it, in the most express terms, and threatened to deny those who denied him, Matthew 10:32-33 ; 1 John 4:15 . The confessing Christ being so necessary, and at the same time so difficult a duty, the apostle very properly connected the assurance of final salvation therewith; because it was the best evidence which the disciple of Christ could have of his own sincerity, and of his being willing to perform every other act of obedience required of him. There is a difference between the profession and the confession of our faith. To profess is to declare a thing of our own accord; but to confess is to declare a thing when asked concerning it. This distinction Cicero mentions in his oration Proverbs Cecinna.” — Macknight. Romans 10:11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Romans 10:11-13 . For the Scripture saith, &c. — He proceeds to prove, by the Scriptures, the saving effects of faith and confession, spoken of in the two last verses. He refers to Isaiah 28:16 , and perhaps also to Psalm 25:3 . Or, he means, that this is the general doctrine of the Scriptures: Whosoever believeth on him — Whether Jew or Gentile; shall not be ashamed — Disappointed of his expectation of salvation, or put to confusion in any imaginable circumstance. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek — As to the way of obtaining justification and salvation; for the same Lord of all — The Creator, Preserver, Governor, and Benefactor of the whole human race; is rich — Full of mercy and grace; so that his blessings are never to be exhausted, nor is he ever unable or unwilling to bestow them on such as are prepared to receive them; or, that call upon him — For them, sincerely, importunately, and in faith. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord — Not only of the Jews, but also of the Gentiles, as appears from Acts 2:21 , where also these words of Joel are quoted; shall be saved — In the sense explained in the note there, and on Joel 2:32 , which see. “The word in the prophet, in the original, is Jehovah, whence it is certain that the prophet speaks these words of the true and only God; and yet it is as certain that he ascribes them to Christ, both from the following words, How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? (for the apostle, in this whole chapter discourses of faith in Christ,) and from the words foregoing, evidently spoken of Christ, of which these are a proof, and with which they are connected by the particle for. Here, then, we have two arguments for the divinity of Christ; 1st, That what is spoken of Jehovah is ascribed to him. 2d, That he is made the object of our religious invocation,” as he is also 1 Corinthians 1:2 , and in many other passages of the epistles. — Whitby. Bishop Pearson, also, ( on the Creed, p. 149,) argues at large from hence, that if Christ be not here called Jehovah, the apostle’s argument is quite inconclusive. It may be observed here likewise, that the great truth proposed, Romans 10:11 , is so repeated in these two following verses, and further confirmed, Romans 10:14-15 , as not only to imply that whosoever calleth upon him shall be saved, but also that the will of God is, that all should savingly call upon him. Romans 10:12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14-17 . How then — As if the apostle had said, From the promise of salvation made to them that shall call on the name of the Lord, I have inferred, that there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles, as to the possibility of obtaining salvation from God; and from hence we may further infer, that the gospel must be preached to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, and the sundry means of grace be dispensed to them, and therefore that we, the apostles, in so doing, do nothing but what is agreeable to the will of God, though on that account we are much reproached and persecuted. For how shall they call upon him — With sincerity; in whom they have not believed — In whose existence, power, and goodness they have not believed; or in whom, as capable of hearing, and able and willing to grant their requests, they have no confidence; (see on Hebrews 11:6 ;) or whom they do not believe to be a proper object of worship, or worthy to be invoked with divine honours and adoration. And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? — “Even the works of nature and providence must be made known to mankind by instructers, to make them able to understand them: much more the gospel of Christ.” — Baxter. Or the apostle speaks here chiefly, if not only, of believing in Christ, and therefore his words are not inconsistent with what he advances, Romans 1:19-20 , concerning the existence and perfections of God being made known to all mankind by the works of creation. Some way or other the divine revelation concerning Christ must be made known to us, before we can understand and believe it. In hearing is included reading, which is tantamount to hearing, and by which many are brought to believe, John 20:31 ; These things are written that you may believe. But hearing only is mentioned as the more ordinary and natural way of receiving information. How shall they hear without a preacher — To carry these important tidings, which the light of nature could never be able to discover: or, except God reveal the gospel to them some way or other. And how shall they — The ministers of the gospel; preach except they be sent — Expressly for that purpose? that is, except they be both commissioned, and, at least in some measure, qualified for that difficult though important work? How shall a man act as an ambassador, unless he have both his instruction and his credentials from the prince that sends him? St. Paul probably intended to intimate, that as the apostles, and other first ministers of the gospel, were originally Jews, their own prejudices on this head were so strong, that they never would have thought of carrying the gospel to the Gentiles if God had not particularly charged them to do it; especially as its avowed opposition to the idolatry and the other vices which reigned in the Gentile countries, could not but expose them, more or less, to persecution in various forms, wherever they came and attempted to preach it. Thus, by a chain of reasoning from God’s will, that the Gentiles also should call upon him, Paul infers that the apostles were sent by God to preach to them also. As it is written — And described in that striking prophecy, Isaiah 52:7-8 , How beautiful are the feet — The very footsteps, or the coming; of them that preach the gospel of peace — The gospel, which shows the way how peace is made between God and man. The figure here applied by Isaiah “is extremely proper. The feet of those who travel through dirty or dusty roads are a sight naturally disagreeable: but when they are thus disfigured by travelling a long journey, to bring good tidings of peace and deliverance to those who have been oppressed by their enemies, they appear beautiful.” — Macknight. Most commentators think “that the 52d chapter of Isaiah is to be explained as a prophecy of the return of the Jews from Babylon, and that the text here quoted refers to the joyful welcome that should be given to the messengers who brought the first tidings of Cyrus’s decree for their dismission. And if it were so, the apostle might very justly infer from thence the superior joy with which the messengers of the gospel should be received. But I think a great deal may be said to show it probable, that the context in question has, in its original sense, a further reference.” — Doddridge. See note on Isaiah 52:7 . But they have not all obeyed, &c. — As if he had said, But you may say, Why then doth not this preaching convert more of the Jews? This excellence of the gospel, and the preaching of it, doth not suppose that all that hear it will be converted by it: for though faith comes by hearing, yet there may be hearing without faith. So Esaias saith — In that very context which contains so many illustrious testimonies to the gospel, namely, Isaiah 53:1 , Lord, who hath believed our report? — That is, very few have been persuaded and converted by our preaching. So then faith cometh by hearing — Hearing is the ordinary means, even hearing the word of God, of begetting faith in people: and it was necessary for the Gentiles, in particular, who had not access to the Scriptures, to have the truths of the gospel declared to them by preaching, that they might hear and believe them. Romans 10:15 And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! Romans 10:16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. Romans 10:18-21 . But I say, Have they not heard — As if he had said, Their unbelief was not owing to the want of hearing. For they have heard; yes, verily, &c. — So many nations have already heard the preachers of the gospel, that I may, in some sense, say of them as David did of the lights of heaven, Their sound went into all the earth, &c. — To the utmost parts of the known world. But I say, Did not Israel know — Namely, that the gospel should be preached to the Gentiles, and many of them thereby made members of the church? They might have known it even from Moses and Isaiah, that many of the Gentiles would be received, and many of the Jews rejected. For first, Moses saith, ( Deuteronomy 32:21 ,) I will provoke you to jealousy — To the highest degree of displeasure and exasperation; by them that are no people — By bestowing your privileges on the Gentiles, who at present are not my people, and of no account with me. As the Jews followed gods that were not gods, so he accepted, in their stead, a nation that was not a nation; that is, a nation that was not in covenant with him. This the Jews could not endure to hear of, and were exceedingly enraged when the apostles preached the gospel to the Gentiles. And by a foolish nation — A people who were destitute of the knowledge of the true God, and showed themselves to be fools by their idolatries. See Jeremiah 10:8 . But indeed all who know not God, may well be called foolish. But Esaias is very bold — And speaks plainly what Moses only intimated, and by so doing showed he was not afraid of the resentment of the Jews, who he knew would be exceedingly provoked at the prophecy which he was about to utter. I was found of them that sought me not — That is, I will call the Gentiles, and by the preaching of my gospel will bring them to the knowledge of myself, who formerly neither knew nor regarded me. The Gentiles were too much occupied with the worship of their idols ever to think of worshipping, or even inquiring after, the true God. Nevertheless, even to them, while in this state, God, by the preaching of the gospel, made himself known, and offered himself to be the object of their worship, and their God in covenant. But to Israel he saith — Invidious as he knew his words would be to a nation so impatient of rebuke, All the day long have I stretched forth my hands — In the most importunate and affectionate addresses; unto a disobedient and gainsaying people — Who are continually objecting and cavilling; whom no persuasion can induce to regard their own happiness, so as to be willing to admit the evidence of truth, and the counsels of wisdom; and whose character is just opposite to that of those who believe with their hearts, and make confession with their mouths. The prophet’s words are an allusion to the action of an orator, who, in speaking to the multitude, stretches out his arms to express his earnestness and affection. By observing that these words were spoken of Israel, the apostle insinuates that the others were spoken of the Gentiles. See the notes on Isaiah 65:1-2 . Romans 10:19 But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. Romans 10:20 But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. Romans 10:21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary Romans 10:1 Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved. Chapter 21 JEWISH UNBELIEF AND GENTILE FAITH: PROPHECY Romans 10:1-21 THE problem of Israel is still upon the Apostle’s soul. He has explored here and there the conditions of the fact that his brethren, as a mass, have rejected Jesus. He has delivered his heart of its loving human groan over the fact. He has reminded himself, and then his readers, that the fact, however, involves no failure of the purpose and promise of God; for God from the first had indicated limitations within the apparent scope of the Abrahamic Promise. He has looked in the face, once for all, the mystery of the relation between God’s efficient will and the will of the creature, finding a refuge, under the moral strain of that mystery, not away from it, but as it were behind it, in the recollection of the infinite trustworthiness, as well as eternal rights, of man’s Maker. Then he has recurred to the underlying main theme of the whole Epistle, the acceptance of the sinner in God’s own One way; and we have seen how, from Israel’s own point of view, Israel has stumbled and fallen just by his own fault. Israel would not rest upon "the Stone of stumbling"; he would collide with it. Divine sovereignty here or there-the heart of Jewish man, in its responsible personality, and wholly of itself-rebelled against a man-humbling salvation. And so all its religiousness, its earnestness, its intensity, went for nothing in the quest for peace and purity. They stumbled-a real striking of real wayward feet-at the Stumbling Stone; which all the while lay ready to be their basis and repose. He cannot leave the subject, with its sadness, its lessons, and its hope. He must say more of his love and longing for Israel; and also more about this aspect of Israel’s fall-this collision of man’s will with the Lord’s Way of Peace. And he will unfold the deep witness of the prophecies to the nature of that Way, and to the reluctance of the Jewish heart to accept it. Moses shall come in with the Law, and Isaiah with the Scriptures of the Prophets; and we shall see how their Inspirer, all along from the first, indicated what should surely happen when a salvation altogether divine should be presented to hearts filled with themselves. Brethren, he begins, the deliberate desire of my heart, whatever discouragements may oppose it and my petition unto God for them, is salvation wards. He is inevitably moved to this by the pathetic sight of their earnestness, misguided indeed, guiltily misguided, utterly inadequate to constitute for them even a phantom of merit; yet, to the eyes that watch it, a different thing from indifference or hypocrisy. He cannot see their real struggles, and not long that they may reach the shore. For I bear them witness, the witness of one who once was the type of the class, that they have zeal of God, an honest jealousy for His Name, His Word, His Worship, only not in the line of spiritual knowledge. They have not seen all He is, all His Word means, all His worship implies. They are sure, and rightly sure, of many things about Him; but they have not "seen Him." And so they have not "abhorred themselves". { Job 41:5-6 } And thus they are not, in their own conviction, shut up to a salvation which must be altogether of Him; which is no contract with Him, but eternal bounty from Him. Solemn and heart-moving scene! There are now, and were then, those who would have surveyed it, and come away with the comfortable reflection that so much earnestness would surely somehow work itself right at last; nay, that it was already sufficiently good in itself to secure these honest zealots a place in some comprehensive heaven. If ever such thoughts had excuse, surely it was here. The "zeal" was quite sincere. It was ready to suffer, as well as to strike. The zealot was not afraid of a world in arms. And he felt himself on fire not for evil, but for God, for the God of Abraham, of Moses, of the Prophets, of the Promise. Would not this do? Would not the lamentable rejection of Jesus which attended it be condoned as a tremendous but mere accident, while the "zeal of God" remained as the substance, the essence, of the spiritual state of the zealot? Surely a very large allowance would be made; to put it at the lowest terms. Yet such was not the view of St. Paul, himself once the most honest and disinterested Jewish zealot in the world. He had seen the Lord. And so he had seen himself. The deadly mixture of motive which may underlie what nevertheless we may have to call an honest hatred of the Gospel had been shown to him in the white light of Christ. In that light he had seen-what it alone can fully show-the condemnableness of all sin, and the hopelessness of self-salvation. From himself he reasons, and rightly, to his brethren. He knows, with a solemn sympathy, how much they are in earnest. But his sympathy conceals no false liberalism; it is not cheaply generous of the claims of God. He does not think that because they are in earnest they are saved. Their earnestness drives his heart to a deeper prayer for their salvation. For knowing not the righteousness of our God, His way of being just, yet the Justifier, and seeking to set up their own righteousness, to construct for themselves a claim which should "stand in judgment," they did not submit to the righteousness of our God, when it appeared before them, embodied in "the Lord our Righteousness." They aspired to acceptance. God bade them submit to it. In their view, it was a matter of attainment; an ascent to a difficult height, where the climber might exult in his success. As He presented it, it was a matter of surrender, as when a patient, given over, places himself helpless in a master-healer’s hands, for a recovery which is to be due to those hands alone, and to be celebrated only to their praise. Alas for such "ignorance" in these earnest souls; for such a failure in Israel to strike the true line of "knowledge"! For it was a guilty failure. The Law had been indicating all the while that their Dispensation was not its own end, but one vast complex means to shut man up to a Redeemer who was at once to satisfy every type, and every oracle, and to supply "the impossible of the Law," { Romans 8:3 } by giving Himself to be the believer’s vicarious Merit. For the Law’s end, its Goal, its Final Cause in the plan of redemption, is-Christ, unto righteousness, to effect and secure this wonderful acceptance, for everyone who believes. Yes, He is no arbitrary sequel to the Law; He stands organically related to it. And to this the Law itself is witness, both by presenting an inexorable and condemning standard as its only possible code of acceptance, and by mysteriously pointing the soul away from that code, in its quest for mercy, to something altogether different, at once accessible and divine. For Moses writes down thus the righteousness got from the Law, "The man who does them, shall live in them"; { Leviticus 18:5 } it is a matter of personal action and personal meriting alone. Thus the code, feasible and beneficent indeed on the plane of national and social life, which is its lower field of action, is necessarily fatal to fallen man when the question lies between his conscience and the eternal Judge. But the righteousness got from faith, the acceptance received by surrendering trust, thus speaks { Deuteronomy 30:12-14 } -in Moses’ words indeed (and this is one main point in the reasoning, that he is witness), yet as it were with a personal voice of its own, deep and tender; "Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend to the heaven?" that is, to bring down Christ, by human efforts, by a climbing merit; "or, Who shall descend into the abyss? that is, to bring up Christ from the dead," as if His victorious Sacrifice needed your supplement in order to its resurrection-triumph. But what does it say? "Near thee is the utterance, the explicit account of the Lord’s willingness to bless the soul which casts itself on Him, in thy mouth, to recite it, and in thy heart," to welcome it. And this message is the utterance of faith, the creed of acceptance by faith alone, which we proclaim; that if you shall confess in your mouth Jesus as Lord, as divine King and Master, and shall believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, owning in the soul the glory of the Resurrection, as revealing and sealing the triumph of the Atonement, you shall be saved. For with the heart faith is exercised, unto righteousness, with acceptance for its resultant; while with the mouth confession is made, unto salvation, with present deliverance and final glory for its resultant, the moral sequel of a life which owns its Lord as all in all. For the Scripture, { Isaiah 28:16 } "Everyone who believes on Him shall not be ashamed," shall never be disappointed; shall be "kept, through faith, unto the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time". { 1 Peter 1:5 } We have traversed here a tract pregnant of questions and mystery. We have to remember here also, as in previous places, that the Scripture is "not a sun, but a lamp." Much, very much, which this passage suggests as problem finds in its words no answer. This citation from Deuteronomy, with its vision of ascents and descents, its thoughts of the heaven and the abyss, what did it mean when aged Moses spoke it in the plains of Moab? What did it mean to him? Did he see, did he feel, Messiah in every clause? Had he conscious foreviews, then and there, of what was to be done ages later beyond that stern ridge of hills, westward of "the narrow stream"? Did he knowingly "testify beforehand" that God was to be born Man at Bethlehem, and to die Man at Jerusalem? We do not know; we cannot possibly know, until the eternal day finds Moses and ourselves together in the City of God, and we better understand the mysterious Word, at last, in that great light. If our Master’s utterances are to be taken as final, it is quite certain that "Moses wrote of Him". { John 5:46 } But it is not certain that he always knew be was so writing when he so wrote; nor is it certain how far his consciousness went when it was most awake that way. In the passage here cited by St. Paul the great Prophet may have been aware only of a reference of his words to the seen, the temporal, the national, to the blessings of loyalty to Israel’s God-given polity, and of a return to it after times of revolt and decline. But then, St. Paul neither affirms this nor denies it. As if on purpose, he almost drops the personality of Moses out of sight, and personifies Justification as the speaker. His concern is less with the Prophet than with his Inspirer, the ultimate Author behind the immediate author. And his own prophet insight is guided to see that in the thought of that Author, as He wielded Moses’ mind and diction at His will, Christ was the inmost purport of the words. We may ask again what are the laws by which the Apostle modifies here the Prophet’s phrases, "Who shall descend into the abyss?" The Hebrew reads, "Who shall go over (or on) the sea?" The Septuagint reads, "Who shall go to the other side of the sea?" Here too "we know in part." Assuredly the change of terms was neither unconsciously made, nor arbitrarily; and it was made for readers who could challenge it, if so it seemed to them to be done. But we should need to know the whole relation of the One inspiring Master to the minds of both His Prophet and His Apostle to answer the question completely. However, we can see that Prophet and Apostle both have in their thought here the antithesis of depth to height; that the sea is, to Moses here, the antithesis to the sky, not to the land; and that St. Paul intensifies the imagery in its true direction accordingly when he writes, "into the abyss." Again, he finds Justification by Faith in the Prophet’s oracle about the subjective "nearness" of "the utterance" of mercy. Once more we own our ignorance of the conscious purport of the words, as Moses’ words. We shall quite decline, if we are reverently cautious, to say that for certain Moses was not aware of such an inmost reference in what he said: it is very much easier to assert than to know what the limitations of the consciousness of the Prophets were. But here also we rest in the fact that behind both Moses and Paul, in their free and mighty personalities, stood their one Lord, building His Scripture slowly into its manifold oneness through them both. He was in the thought and word of Moses; and meantime already to Him the thought and word of Paul were present, and were in His plan. And the earlier utterance had this at least to do with the later, that it drew the mind of the pondering and worshipping Israel to the idea of a contact with God in His Promises which was not external and mechanical but deep within the individual himself, and manifested in the individual’s free and living avowal of it. As we quit the passage, let us mark and cherish its insistence upon "confession," "confession with the mouth that Jesus is Lord." This specially he connects with "salvation," with the believer’s preservation to eternal glory. "Faith" is "unto righteousness"; "confession" is "unto salvation." Why is this? Is faith after all not enough for our union with the Lord. and for our safety in Him? Must we bring in something else, to be a more or less meritorious makeweight in the scale? If this is what he means, he is gainsaying the whole argument of the Epistle on its main theme. No; it is eternally true that we are justified, that we are accepted, that we are incorporated, that we are kept, through faith only; that is, that Christ is all for all things in our salvation, and our part and work in the matter are to receive and hold Him in an empty hand. But then this empty hand, holding Him, receives life and power from Him. The man is vivified by his Rescuer. He is rescued that he may live, and that he may serve as living. He cannot truly serve without loyalty to his Lord. He cannot be truly loyal while he hides his relation to Him. In some articulate way he must "confess Him"; or he is not treading the path where the Shepherd walks before the sheep. The "confession with the mouth" here in view is, surely, nothing less than the believer’s open loyalty to Christ. It is no mere recitation of even the sacred catholic Creed; which may be recited as by an automaton. It is the witness of the whole man to Christ, as his own discovered Life and Lord. And thus it means in effect the path of faithfulness along which the Saviour actually leads to glory those who are justified by faith. That no slackened emphasis on faith is to be felt here is clear from Romans 10:11 . There, in the summary and close of the passage, nothing but faith is named; "whosoever believeth on Him." It is as if he would correct even the slightest disquieting surmise that our repose upon the Lord has to be secured by something other than Himself, through some means more complex than taking Him at His word. Here, as much as anywhere in the Epistle, this is the message; "from faith to faith." The "confession with the mouth" is not a different something added to this faith; it is its issue, its manifestation, its embodiment. "I believed; therefore have I spoken." { Psalm 116:10 } This recurrence to his great theme gives the Apostle’s thought a direction once again towards the truth of the worldwide scope of the Gospel of Acceptance. In the midst of this philo-judean section of the Epistle, on his way to say glorious things about abiding mercy and coming blessing for the Jews, he must pause again to assert the equal welcome of "the Greeks" to the Righteousness of God, and the foreshadow of this welcome in the Prophets. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek wonderful antithesis to the "no distinction" of Romans 3:23 . For the same Lord is Lord of all, wealthy to all who call upon Him, who invoke Him, who appeal to Him, in the name of His own mercies in His redeeming Son. For we have the prophecies with us here again. Joel, in a passage { Joel 2:32 } full of Messiah, the passage with which the Spirit of Pentecost filled Peter’s lips, speaks thus without a limit; "Everyone, whoever shall call upon the Lord’s Name, shall be saved." As he cites the words, and the thought rises upon him of this immense welcome to the sinful world, he feels afresh all the need of the heathen, and all the cruel narrowness of the Pharisaism which would shut them out from such an amplitude of blessing. How then can they call on Him on whom they never believed? But how can they believe on Him whom they never heard? But how can they hear Him apart from a proclaimer? But how can they proclaim unless they are sent, unless the Church which holds the sacred light sends her messengers out into the darkness? And in this again the Prophets are with the Christian Apostle, and against the loveless Judaist: As it stands written, { Isaiah 52:7 } "How fair the feet of the gospellers of peace, of the gospellers of good." Here, as an incident in this profound discussion, is given forever to the Church of Christ one of the most distinct and stringent of her missionary "marching orders." Let us recollect this, and lay it on our own souls, forgetting awhile, for we may, the problem of Israel and the exclusiveness of ancient Pharisaism. What is there here for us? What motive facts are here, ready to energise and direct the will of the Christian, and of the Church, in the matter of the "gospelling" of the world? We take note first of what is written last, the moral beauty and glory of the enterprise. "How fair the feet!" From the viewpoint of heaven there is nothing on the earth more lovely than the bearing of the name of Jesus Christ into the needing world, when the bearer is one "who loves and knows." The work may have, and probably will have, very little of the rainbow of romance about it. It will often lead the worker into the most uncouth and forbidding circumstances. It will often demand of him the patient expenditure of days and months upon humiliating and circuitous preparations; as he learns a barbarous unwitten tongue, or a tongue ancient and elaborate, in a stifling climate; or finds that he must build his own hut, and dress his own food, if he is to live at all among "the Gentiles." It may lay on him the exquisite-and prosaic-trial of finding the tribes around him entirely unaware of their need of his message; unconscious of sin, of guilt, of holiness, of God. Nay, they may not only not care for his message: they may suspect or deride his motives, and roundly tell him that he is a political spy, or an adventurer come to make his private gains, or a barbarian tired of his own Thule and irresistibly attracted to the region of the sun. He will often be tempted to think "the journey too great for him," and long to let his tired and heavy feet rest forever. But his Lord is saying of him, all the while, "How fair the feet!" He is doing a work whose inmost conditions even now are full of moral glory, and whose eternal issues, perhaps where, he thinks there has been most failure, shall be, by grace, worthy of "the King in His beauty." It is the continuation of what the King Himself "began to do," { Acts 1:1 } when He was His own first Missionary to a world which needed Him immeasurably, yet did not know Him when He came. Then, this paragraph asserts the necessity of the missionary’s work still more urgently than its beauty. True, it suggests many questions (what great Scripture does not do so?) which we cannot answer yet at all:-"Why has He left the Gentiles thus? Why is so much, for their salvation, suspended (in our view) upon the too precarious and too lingering diligence of the Church? What will the King say at last to those who never could, by the Church’s fault, even hear the blessed Name, that they might believe in It, and call upon It?" He knoweth the whole answer to such questions; not we. Yet here meanwhile stands out this "thing revealed." { Deuteronomy 29:29 } In the Lord’s normal order, which is for certain the order of eternal spiritual right and love, however little we can see all the conditions of the case, man is to be saved through a personal "calling upon His Name." And for that "calling" there is need of personal believing. And for that believing there is need of personal hearing. And in order to that hearing, God does not speak in articulate thunder from the sky, nor send visible angels up and down the earth, but bids His Church, His children, go and tell. Nothing can be stronger and surer than the practical logic of this passage. The need of the world, it says to us, is not only amelioration, elevation, evolution. It is salvation. It is pardon, acceptance, holiness, and heaven. It is God; it is Christ. And that need is to be met not by subtle expansions of polity and society. No "unconscious cerebration" of the human race will regenerate fallen man. Nor will his awful wound be healed by any drawing on the shadowy resources of a post-mortal hope. The work is to be done now, in the Name of Jesus Christ, and by His Name. And His Name, in order to be known, has to be announced and explained. And that work is to be done by those who already know it, or it will not be done at all. "There is none other Name." There is no other method of evangelisation. Why is not the Name already, at least externally, known and reverenced in every place of human dwelling? It would have been so, for a long time now, if the Church of Christ had followed better the precept and also the example of St. Paul. Had the apostolic missions been sustained more adequately throughout Christian history, and had the apostolic Gospel been better maintained in the Church in all the energy of its divine simplicity and fulness, the globe would have been covered-not indeed in a hurry, yet ages ago now-with the knowledge of Jesus Christ as Fact, as Truth, as Life. We are told even now by some of the best informed advocates of missionary enterprise that if Protestant Christendom (to speak of it alone) were really to respond to the missionary call, and "send" its messengers out not by tens but by thousands (no chimerical number), it would be soberly possible within thirty years so to distribute the message that no given inhabited spot should be, at furthest, one day’s walk from a centre of evangelisation. This programme is not fanaticism, surely. It is a proposal for possible action, too long deferred, in the line of St. Paul’s precept and example. It is not meant to discredit any present form of well-considered operation. And it does not for a moment ignore the futility of all enterprise where the sovereign power of the Eternal Spirit is not present. Nor does it forget the permanent call to the Church to sustain amply the pastoral work at home, in "the flock of God which is among us." { 1 Peter 5:2 } But it sees and emphasises the fact that the Lord has laid it upon His Church to be His messenger to the whole world, and to be in holy earnest about it, and that the work, as to its human side, is quite feasible to a Church awake. "Stir up, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the wills of Thy faithful people" to both the glory and the necessity of this labour of labours for Thee, "that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of it, may of Thee be plenteously rewarded," in Thy divine use of their obedience, for the salvation of the world. But the great missionary anticipates an objection from facts to his burning plea for the rightness of an unrestrained evangelism. The proclamation might be universal: but were not the results partial? "Here a little, and there a little"; was not this the story of missionary results even when a Paul, a Barnabas, a Peter, was the missionary? Everywhere some faith; but everywhere more hostility and still more indifference! Could this, after all, be the main track of the divine purposes-these often ineffectual excursions of the "fair feet" of the messengers of an eternal peace? Ah, that objection must have offered no mere logical difficulty to St. Paul; it must have pierced his heart. For while His Master was his first motive, his fellow men themselves were his second. He loved their souls; he longed to see them blessed in Christ, saved in Him from "the death that cannot die," filed in Him with "life indeed" ? ????? ??? . { 1 Timothy 6:19 } The man who shed tears over his converts as he warned them { Acts 20:31 } had tears also, we may be sure, for those who would not be converted; nay, we know he had: "I tell you, even weeping ( ??? ????? ), that they are the enemies of the Cross of Christ." { Php 3:18 } But here too he leans back on the solemn comfort, the answer from within a veil, -that Prophecy had taken account of this beforehand. Moses, and Isaiah, and David had foretold on the one hand a universal message of good, but on the other hand a sorrowfully limited response from man, and notably from Israel. So he proceeds: But not all obeyed the good tidings, when "the word" reached them; for-we were prepared for such a mystery, such a grief-for Isaiah says, { Isaiah 53:1 } in his great Oracle of the Crucified, "Lord, who believed our hearing," the message they heard of us, about One "on whom were laid the iniquities of us all?" And as he dictates that word "hearing," it emphasises to him the fact that not mystic intuitions born out of the depths of man are the means of revelation, but articulate messages given from the depths of God, and spoken by men to men. And he throws the thought into a brief sentence, such as would lie in a footnote in a modern book: So we gather that faith comes from hearing; but the hearing comes through Christ’s utterance; the messenger has it because it was first given to him by the Master who proclaimed Himself the Way, Truth, Life, Light, Bread, Shepherd, Ransom, Lord. All is revelation, not reverie; utterance, not insight. Then the swift thought turns, and returns again. The prophecies have foretold an evangelical utterance to the whole human world. Not only in explicit prediction do they do so, but in the "mystic glory" of their more remote allusions. But I say, Did they not hear? Was this failure of belief due to a limitation of the messenger’s range in the plan of God? Nay, rather, "Unto all the earth went out their tone, and to the ends of man’s world their utterances." { Psalm 19:4 } The words are the voice of that Psalm where the glories of the visible heavens are collocated with the glories of the Word of God. The Apostle hears more than Nature in the Sunrise Hymn of David; he hears grace and the Gospel in the deep harmony which carries the immortal melody along. The God who meant the skies, with their "silent voices," to preach a Creator not to one race but to all, meant also His Word to have no narrower scope, preaching a Redeemer. Yes, and there were articulate predictions that it should be so, as well as starry parables; predictions, too, that showed the prospect not only of a world evangelised, but of an Israel put to shame by the faith of pagans. But I say (his rapid phrase meets with an anticipating answer the cavil yet unspoken) did not Israel know? Had they no distinct forewarning of what we see today? First comes Moses, saying, in his prophetic Song, sung at the foot of Pisgah, { Deuteronomy 32:21 } "I [the ‘I’ is emphatic; the Person is the Lord, and the action shall be nothing less than His] I will take a no-nation to move your jealousy; to move your anger I will take a nation non-intelligent"; a race not only not informed by a previous revelation, but not trained by thought upon it to an insight into new truth. And what Moses indicates, Isaiah, standing later in the history, indignantly explains: But Isaiah dares anything and says, { Isaiah 65:1 } "I was found by those who sought not Me; manifest I became to those who consulted not Me." But as to Israel he says, in the words next in order in the place, { Isaiah 65:2 } "All the day long I spread my hands open, to beckon and to embrace, towards a people disobeying and contradicting." So the servant brings his sorrows for consolation to-may we write the words in reverence?-the sorrows of His Master. He mourns over an Athens, an Ephesus, and above all a Jerusalem, that "will not come to the Son of God, that they might have life." { John 5:40 } And his grief is not only inevitable; it is profoundly right, wise, holy. But he need not bear it unrelieved. He grasps the Scripture which tells him that his Lord has called those who would not come, and opened the eternal arms for an embrace-to be met only with a contradiction. He weeps, but it is as on the breast of Jesus as He wept over the City. And in the double certainty that the Lord has felt such grief, and that He is the Lord, he yields, he rests, he is still. "The King of the Ages" { 1 Timothy 1:17 } and "the Man of Sorrows" are One. To know Him is to he at peace, even under the griefs of the mystery of sin. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.