| Romans! |
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| |
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| Some Additional Thoughts |
There is no distinction between Jew and Greek. For the same
Master is over all and is rich to all that call upon Him.
Paul's statement in this verse refers directly back to verse 11,
"Whosoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed." It doesn't
matter if you are a Jew, or a Gentile, If you have faith in the
Messiah who is our Master, you will <never> be ashamed!
There is no distinction in this matter between the Jew and the
Gentile. For God is over all and abundantly supplies the loving
kindness necessary to close the gap of sin that separates us
from Him. This all hinges on our being willing to call upon Him
and make our requests known to Him.
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.
For every one who calls upon the name of the Master will be
saved.
Paul must have had Joel 2:32 in mind when he made this
statement. The word <saved> in this verse means <rescued>.
In other words, if you have heard the gospel of the Messiah and
have come to believe that He has died to justify your sins and
close the gap between you and the Father, and you have faith in
Him and confess that He is the Savior of mankind sent by the
Father, that He is even now at the right hand of the Father on
high interceding for those who call upon Him, and you realize
your need to be reconciled to God, and call upon Him then you
will be justified from your sins. You will be reconciled and you
will be rescued; you will be ransomed from your sins and set on
the path to eternal life.
This one statement cannot be isolated and taken as some easy
nominal route to eternal life. One cannot ignore the rest of the
Bible and place some obligation on God that flies in the face of
the rest of His word. And Paul is only explaining the starting
point of salvation here, not some guarantee of eternal life
regardless of what we may do.
Joe 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the
name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in
Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the
remnant whom the LORD shall call.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
But how are people to call upon Him 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?
In this verse, Paul shows the general process that brings one to
repentance. He begins in reverse order. If you do not believe
in God, you will not call upon Him. If you have not heard about
God, you cannot believe in Him. And if there is no one to tell
you about God, you cannot hear about Him.
The reason that the Gentiles did not call upon God was because
no one had told them about Him, they had not heard, and they
could not call upon Him because they didn't know about Him.
Now that the Messiah had come and shown to Peter and later
Paul that the Gentiles were to be included in the salvation
process, the message was beginning to go out and the Gentiles
were hearing and believing. For living faith comes by hearing
the word, believing the word, and doing the word.
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?
And how can someone preach, unless he is sent? As it is
written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the
gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
Someone who does not believe in the Messiah cannot tell others
about Him. So, one must be called to believe and as he learns
and becomes a student of the word of God, he is preparing
himself for the time when God can use him to tell others about
the truth of God. If God gives him a gift to understand the
Scriptures and to open them to others, we can presume that
God has sent him for this purpose.
If one goes to a seminary, and learns the doctrines of other
men, and then goes out to preach the precepts of men, we
cannot assume that God has sent him. There is nothing wrong
with having schools to teach people the truths of the Bible. It is
good to make available places of study so that young men can
saturate themselves in the understanding of God's ways. But
to force an army of men to go forth and teach the dogmas of a
given view is wrong. It stifles the search into truth.
Whom did the Messiah make His disciples? He went out and
called fishermen, tax collectors, and other men who would have
been looked down upon by those in authority! And others who
had corrupted the word of God had not written on these men’s
minds – in any formal way. But, God made of these men mighty
apostles who preached the word and spread the gospel to the
entire world of their day. God does not work through man's
organizations, but He does His work as He sees fit. He picks
one here and one there to do His will. He gives each one, whom
He chooses, the insight to understand the deep things of God;
and gives the knowledge and will to those who do not know the
truth so they can understand and believe the gospel and
thereby have faith in God.
Paul took the "as it is written" statement from Isa 52:7.
Those, whom God has called to understand His Word, are seen
as full of grace! They are beautiful people who have been
given the knowledge of glad tidings of good things. They
publish the understanding and knowledge of things that bring
peace and ultimately salvation to all of humanity. It is God's
ways that will bring to mankind every good thing that he is
seeking. I am reminded of the lament, Why will you die, O
house of Israel?
Isa 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth!
Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his
way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die,
O house of Israel?
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!
But they have not all accepted the gospel. For Isaiah says,
Master, who has believed our report?
Paul is probably addressing this remark directly to the Jews.
For it was they who were not accepting the gospel; and the
theme of Paul's writing, in this section, is that the Gentiles are
listening and believing the message while the Jews will neither
listen to nor believe the report. The Israelites were known to
be a stiff-necked people. Even Isaiah said, Lord, Who has
believed our report?
Even though God sent messengers, who made known the gospel
of peace and salvation, the Jews would not hear. And even
today, the descendants of Abraham love to heap to themselves
preachers who give them messages of smooth words. They
don't want to hear about their transgressions and how to be
reconciled and learn to live a beautiful, holy, righteous life.
They turn their ears away from the report and will not listen.
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who
hath believed our report?
So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the
message comes from the word of God.
This statement tells us how faith is generated in each of us. We
must first of all hear a message. That message is not just any
old message, but one from God. At the time of Paul, the
message was still being penned by some of the Apostles such as
Paul, and John. They were still receiving messages from God
and passing them on to the people. But today we have the
written word of God and no message can contradict the written
word of God. So the message today comes from the Bible. We
hear what the Bible says and we believe what we hear. That is
faith. But we understand the message because God gives us
the ability to understand by calling us and opening up to us the
intent of the message. After we are given the holy spirit we
continue to come to a better and better understanding of the
word. And we believe what we read more than just as head
knowledge. It becomes a living faith in that we obey what we
hear.
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
But I ask, Have they not heard the message? Indeed they
have! Their musical sound went into all the earth and their
words to the ends of the world.
Paul seems to be echoing the words of David in Ps 19:4 where
the Psalmist is referring to the creation of the heavens as a
witness of God's glory. The idea could be that through David's
poetry and song of the firmament of the heavens, all
understood the plan of God as written in the stars. It seems
that through the starry expanse everyone the world over had
heard of that plan of a Savior to come and make possible
reconciliation of man back to God through the witness of the
stars.
The meaning of the word <sound> that Paul uses here means a
musical sound as poetry set to music.
If one reads the book, "Witness of the Stars" by Bullinger, one
can see the possibility of what Paul is saying here. It seems
that God, though the constellations, has written the plan of
salvation in the heavens above us. No doubt poetry and music
about the starry skies carried the plan of God for centuries.
David said, The heavens declare the glory of God. This
message became corrupted into the paganism of the trinity of a
mother-father-son worship, well entrenched even before the
flood!
Ps 19:1 <<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end
of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Paul is showing the Jews that God's creation was not just for
them, but for the whole world. Adam and Eve are the
progenitors of all the peoples of the earth, not just of the Jews.
And Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. God had
not intended for the Jews to isolate themselves in a cocoon at
the exclusion of the world. They were to have been an example
to the rest of the world so that all could be brought to salvation.
The Jews had not done their job in this regard. That is one
reason that Paul says to them in an earlier verse, how can they
understand unless they hear the message? Now the message
was going out and the Jews were unhappy. They had not
gotten the message out and were upset at those who were
getting the message out. For the message was not constructed
as would have been their religion of Judaism!
But in this verse, Paul is showing that God's message of His
plan written in the skies as explained by David in song was for
the whole world, not just for the Jews. The sun does not rise on
the just only, but on the unjust as well. The stars shine down on
the entire world - not just on those who understand the truth.
Therefore, we must understand that God's plan is for all
humans, not just for a few isolated in Judea.
This message is for us today also. We must realize that every
man woman and child in the world today are a part of the
ultimate plan of God. We have been privileged to understand
the truth today. But we need to find a way to get the message
out to the world. We don't want to become a cocoon like the
Jews in our understanding of the Bible.
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.
Again I ask, Did the people of Israel not understand? First,
Moses says, "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are
no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
In the previous verse, Paul said that everyone knew about the
plan of God to include the whole world through the message of
the stars. But what about the people of Israel? Were they not
told that others would be brought into the plan of salvation?
First Paul sites a verse from Moses. All the Jews should have
understood this verse. God had told them that he would
provoke them to anger by a people who were not His people.
He would provoke them to anger with a nation void of His
understanding. Now, the Jews were very upset and brought to
anger, even threatening Paul's life for going to the Gentiles and
preaching a message about the Messiah which they had refused
to accept.
But the message was going out to a nation that had not been
fed a daily diet of the great law of God, as had been the case
for the Jews. Now God was calling out a people for Himself
who had at one time been no people to Him.
De 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move
them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them
to anger with a foolish nation.
Paul continues this same thought in the next verse.
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.
But Isaiah is very bold, and says, "I was found by those who
were not looking for me; I was made known to those who had
not inquired about me."
Paul says that Isaiah shows that a people who were not even
looking for God had a message brought to them and they
embraced Him. They had not asked about God, but the
message came and they heard it gladly and came to know God.
This Scripture should have keyed the Jews to the fact that God
had plans to include the whole world in His salvation process.
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.
But concerning Israel He says, "All day long I have stretched
forth my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.
Paul continues to say that Israel had been disobedient and a
contradicting people. God had called them as a nation through
their father Abraham. He had bestowed His love upon them
and nourished them with food, water, shelter, land, and perfect
laws to govern their nation. But they were like a bucking
bronco always wanting to get out from under God's special
protection for them. They wanted to be like the rest of the
world. All day long God had sought their allegiance. They had
rebelled from the beginning and to the very end. They were
even now rebelling by refusing to see that God's plan included
the whole world and a Savior who would reconcile, redeem,
rescue, ransom and justify them back to God. It was foretold
to the whole world in the stars. It was told to Israel in more
than one way. But they had their own agenda. They were too
busy to hear God's word for them. As Stephen said, they were
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in <heart and ears>. They
resisted the holy spirit incessantly and perpetually.
Ac 7:51 Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
In this section, Paul has continued to show that God's plan is for
all humans, not just the Jews. Those who read or hear the
word of God and believe it to the point of doing what it says will
never be ashamed of their trust in Him. Whoever, whether he
be Jew or Gentile, calls on God will be given an opportunity for
salvation.
The Jews had not published the message of salvation to the
Gentiles. Paul showed that one could not understand unless he
heard the message. And in order to hear the message, there
must be someone preaching the message. Of course, today we
have Paul's writings, which were not available in those days.
However, they are not so easy to understand as we have seen
in this study! The religious world is polarized into two great
camps opposing each other about Paul's writings. But God will
see to it that His people will understand.
All have not accepted the message, but all have heard the
message. The Gentiles can look up in the sky and see the
magnificence of God's handiwork. They are included under this
display of genius. It should give them pause to know that a
great Creator brought this into being. And the constellations,
according to some, tell the plan of salvation in the skies. The
Jews had the record of Moses and Isaiah that other nations
would be included in the plan of God.
Had the Jews been obedient to God and listened carefully to
His word, they would have become the example they were
meant to be and God's salvation could have been published into
the entire world through them. But they were a contrary
people working against God and for their own destruction.
They had rejected the Son of God and God had hardened
them. They had put the Son of God to death and refused to
believe in His resurrection. They had 40 days and nights to
verify that He had been raised from the grave, but they had
other "more important" things to do! Now, God was sending
His messengers to the Gentiles.
Home
Commentaries
Chapter:
One
Two
Three
Four
Four Continued
Five
Six
Seven
Seven Continued
Eight
Eight Continued
Master is over all and is rich to all that call upon Him.
Paul's statement in this verse refers directly back to verse 11,
"Whosoever believes on Him shall not be ashamed." It doesn't
matter if you are a Jew, or a Gentile, If you have faith in the
Messiah who is our Master, you will <never> be ashamed!
There is no distinction in this matter between the Jew and the
Gentile. For God is over all and abundantly supplies the loving
kindness necessary to close the gap of sin that separates us
from Him. This all hinges on our being willing to call upon Him
and make our requests known to Him.
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.
For every one who calls upon the name of the Master will be
saved.
Paul must have had Joel 2:32 in mind when he made this
statement. The word <saved> in this verse means <rescued>.
In other words, if you have heard the gospel of the Messiah and
have come to believe that He has died to justify your sins and
close the gap between you and the Father, and you have faith in
Him and confess that He is the Savior of mankind sent by the
Father, that He is even now at the right hand of the Father on
high interceding for those who call upon Him, and you realize
your need to be reconciled to God, and call upon Him then you
will be justified from your sins. You will be reconciled and you
will be rescued; you will be ransomed from your sins and set on
the path to eternal life.
This one statement cannot be isolated and taken as some easy
nominal route to eternal life. One cannot ignore the rest of the
Bible and place some obligation on God that flies in the face of
the rest of His word. And Paul is only explaining the starting
point of salvation here, not some guarantee of eternal life
regardless of what we may do.
Joe 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the
name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in
Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the
remnant whom the LORD shall call.
13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
But how are people to call upon Him 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?
In this verse, Paul shows the general process that brings one to
repentance. He begins in reverse order. If you do not believe
in God, you will not call upon Him. If you have not heard about
God, you cannot believe in Him. And if there is no one to tell
you about God, you cannot hear about Him.
The reason that the Gentiles did not call upon God was because
no one had told them about Him, they had not heard, and they
could not call upon Him because they didn't know about Him.
Now that the Messiah had come and shown to Peter and later
Paul that the Gentiles were to be included in the salvation
process, the message was beginning to go out and the Gentiles
were hearing and believing. For living faith comes by hearing
the word, believing the word, and doing the word.
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?
And how can someone preach, unless he is sent? As it is
written, How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the
gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!
Someone who does not believe in the Messiah cannot tell others
about Him. So, one must be called to believe and as he learns
and becomes a student of the word of God, he is preparing
himself for the time when God can use him to tell others about
the truth of God. If God gives him a gift to understand the
Scriptures and to open them to others, we can presume that
God has sent him for this purpose.
If one goes to a seminary, and learns the doctrines of other
men, and then goes out to preach the precepts of men, we
cannot assume that God has sent him. There is nothing wrong
with having schools to teach people the truths of the Bible. It is
good to make available places of study so that young men can
saturate themselves in the understanding of God's ways. But
to force an army of men to go forth and teach the dogmas of a
given view is wrong. It stifles the search into truth.
Whom did the Messiah make His disciples? He went out and
called fishermen, tax collectors, and other men who would have
been looked down upon by those in authority! And others who
had corrupted the word of God had not written on these men’s
minds – in any formal way. But, God made of these men mighty
apostles who preached the word and spread the gospel to the
entire world of their day. God does not work through man's
organizations, but He does His work as He sees fit. He picks
one here and one there to do His will. He gives each one, whom
He chooses, the insight to understand the deep things of God;
and gives the knowledge and will to those who do not know the
truth so they can understand and believe the gospel and
thereby have faith in God.
Paul took the "as it is written" statement from Isa 52:7.
Those, whom God has called to understand His Word, are seen
as full of grace! They are beautiful people who have been
given the knowledge of glad tidings of good things. They
publish the understanding and knowledge of things that bring
peace and ultimately salvation to all of humanity. It is God's
ways that will bring to mankind every good thing that he is
seeking. I am reminded of the lament, Why will you die, O
house of Israel?
Isa 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings
of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God
reigneth!
Eze 33:11 Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his
way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die,
O house of Israel?
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!
But they have not all accepted the gospel. For Isaiah says,
Master, who has believed our report?
Paul is probably addressing this remark directly to the Jews.
For it was they who were not accepting the gospel; and the
theme of Paul's writing, in this section, is that the Gentiles are
listening and believing the message while the Jews will neither
listen to nor believe the report. The Israelites were known to
be a stiff-necked people. Even Isaiah said, Lord, Who has
believed our report?
Even though God sent messengers, who made known the gospel
of peace and salvation, the Jews would not hear. And even
today, the descendants of Abraham love to heap to themselves
preachers who give them messages of smooth words. They
don't want to hear about their transgressions and how to be
reconciled and learn to live a beautiful, holy, righteous life.
They turn their ears away from the report and will not listen.
16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who
hath believed our report?
So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the
message comes from the word of God.
This statement tells us how faith is generated in each of us. We
must first of all hear a message. That message is not just any
old message, but one from God. At the time of Paul, the
message was still being penned by some of the Apostles such as
Paul, and John. They were still receiving messages from God
and passing them on to the people. But today we have the
written word of God and no message can contradict the written
word of God. So the message today comes from the Bible. We
hear what the Bible says and we believe what we hear. That is
faith. But we understand the message because God gives us
the ability to understand by calling us and opening up to us the
intent of the message. After we are given the holy spirit we
continue to come to a better and better understanding of the
word. And we believe what we read more than just as head
knowledge. It becomes a living faith in that we obey what we
hear.
17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
But I ask, Have they not heard the message? Indeed they
have! Their musical sound went into all the earth and their
words to the ends of the world.
Paul seems to be echoing the words of David in Ps 19:4 where
the Psalmist is referring to the creation of the heavens as a
witness of God's glory. The idea could be that through David's
poetry and song of the firmament of the heavens, all
understood the plan of God as written in the stars. It seems
that through the starry expanse everyone the world over had
heard of that plan of a Savior to come and make possible
reconciliation of man back to God through the witness of the
stars.
The meaning of the word <sound> that Paul uses here means a
musical sound as poetry set to music.
If one reads the book, "Witness of the Stars" by Bullinger, one
can see the possibility of what Paul is saying here. It seems
that God, though the constellations, has written the plan of
salvation in the heavens above us. No doubt poetry and music
about the starry skies carried the plan of God for centuries.
David said, The heavens declare the glory of God. This
message became corrupted into the paganism of the trinity of a
mother-father-son worship, well entrenched even before the
flood!
Ps 19:1 <<To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.>> The heavens
declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handy work.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end
of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,
Paul is showing the Jews that God's creation was not just for
them, but for the whole world. Adam and Eve are the
progenitors of all the peoples of the earth, not just of the Jews.
And Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. God had
not intended for the Jews to isolate themselves in a cocoon at
the exclusion of the world. They were to have been an example
to the rest of the world so that all could be brought to salvation.
The Jews had not done their job in this regard. That is one
reason that Paul says to them in an earlier verse, how can they
understand unless they hear the message? Now the message
was going out and the Jews were unhappy. They had not
gotten the message out and were upset at those who were
getting the message out. For the message was not constructed
as would have been their religion of Judaism!
But in this verse, Paul is showing that God's message of His
plan written in the skies as explained by David in song was for
the whole world, not just for the Jews. The sun does not rise on
the just only, but on the unjust as well. The stars shine down on
the entire world - not just on those who understand the truth.
Therefore, we must understand that God's plan is for all
humans, not just for a few isolated in Judea.
This message is for us today also. We must realize that every
man woman and child in the world today are a part of the
ultimate plan of God. We have been privileged to understand
the truth today. But we need to find a way to get the message
out to the world. We don't want to become a cocoon like the
Jews in our understanding of the Bible.
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.
Again I ask, Did the people of Israel not understand? First,
Moses says, "I will provoke you to jealousy by those who are
no people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
In the previous verse, Paul said that everyone knew about the
plan of God to include the whole world through the message of
the stars. But what about the people of Israel? Were they not
told that others would be brought into the plan of salvation?
First Paul sites a verse from Moses. All the Jews should have
understood this verse. God had told them that he would
provoke them to anger by a people who were not His people.
He would provoke them to anger with a nation void of His
understanding. Now, the Jews were very upset and brought to
anger, even threatening Paul's life for going to the Gentiles and
preaching a message about the Messiah which they had refused
to accept.
But the message was going out to a nation that had not been
fed a daily diet of the great law of God, as had been the case
for the Jews. Now God was calling out a people for Himself
who had at one time been no people to Him.
De 32:21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;
they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move
them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them
to anger with a foolish nation.
Paul continues this same thought in the next verse.
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.
But Isaiah is very bold, and says, "I was found by those who
were not looking for me; I was made known to those who had
not inquired about me."
Paul says that Isaiah shows that a people who were not even
looking for God had a message brought to them and they
embraced Him. They had not asked about God, but the
message came and they heard it gladly and came to know God.
This Scripture should have keyed the Jews to the fact that God
had plans to include the whole world in His salvation process.
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.
But concerning Israel He says, "All day long I have stretched
forth my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.
Paul continues to say that Israel had been disobedient and a
contradicting people. God had called them as a nation through
their father Abraham. He had bestowed His love upon them
and nourished them with food, water, shelter, land, and perfect
laws to govern their nation. But they were like a bucking
bronco always wanting to get out from under God's special
protection for them. They wanted to be like the rest of the
world. All day long God had sought their allegiance. They had
rebelled from the beginning and to the very end. They were
even now rebelling by refusing to see that God's plan included
the whole world and a Savior who would reconcile, redeem,
rescue, ransom and justify them back to God. It was foretold
to the whole world in the stars. It was told to Israel in more
than one way. But they had their own agenda. They were too
busy to hear God's word for them. As Stephen said, they were
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in <heart and ears>. They
resisted the holy spirit incessantly and perpetually.
Ac 7:51 Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do
always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
21 But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands
unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.
In this section, Paul has continued to show that God's plan is for
all humans, not just the Jews. Those who read or hear the
word of God and believe it to the point of doing what it says will
never be ashamed of their trust in Him. Whoever, whether he
be Jew or Gentile, calls on God will be given an opportunity for
salvation.
The Jews had not published the message of salvation to the
Gentiles. Paul showed that one could not understand unless he
heard the message. And in order to hear the message, there
must be someone preaching the message. Of course, today we
have Paul's writings, which were not available in those days.
However, they are not so easy to understand as we have seen
in this study! The religious world is polarized into two great
camps opposing each other about Paul's writings. But God will
see to it that His people will understand.
All have not accepted the message, but all have heard the
message. The Gentiles can look up in the sky and see the
magnificence of God's handiwork. They are included under this
display of genius. It should give them pause to know that a
great Creator brought this into being. And the constellations,
according to some, tell the plan of salvation in the skies. The
Jews had the record of Moses and Isaiah that other nations
would be included in the plan of God.
Had the Jews been obedient to God and listened carefully to
His word, they would have become the example they were
meant to be and God's salvation could have been published into
the entire world through them. But they were a contrary
people working against God and for their own destruction.
They had rejected the Son of God and God had hardened
them. They had put the Son of God to death and refused to
believe in His resurrection. They had 40 days and nights to
verify that He had been raised from the grave, but they had
other "more important" things to do! Now, God was sending
His messengers to the Gentiles.
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Seven Continued
Eight
Eight Continued