In something of such stillness shall we approach the paragraph now to follow? Shall we listen, not to explain away, not even over much to explain, but to submit, with a submission which is not a suppressed resentment but an entire reliance? We shall find that the whole matter, in its practical aspect, has a voice articulate enough for the soul which sees Christ, and believes on Him. It says to that soul, "Who maketh thee to differ? Who hath fashioned thee to honour? Why art thou not now, as once, guiltily rejecting Christ, or, what is the same, postponing Him? Thank HIM who has 'compelled thee,' yet without violation of thyself, 'to come in.' See in thy choice of Him His mercy on thee. And now, fall at His feet, to bless Him, to serve Him, and to trust Him. Think ill of thyself. Think reverently of others. And remember (the Infinite, who has chosen thee, says it), He willeth not the death of a sinner, He loved the world, He bids thee to tell it that He loves it, to tell it that He is Love."
Now we listen. With a look which speaks awe, but not misgiving, disclosing past tempests of doubt, but now a rest of faith, the Apostle dictates again:
[Sidenote: Ver. 14.] =What therefore shall we say? Is there injustice at God's bar (παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ)? Away with the thought.= The thing is, in the deepest sense, unthinkable. God, the God of Revelation, the God of Christ, is a Being who, if unjust--_ceases to be_, "denies _Himself_." But the thought that His reasons for some given action should be, at least to us now, absolute mystery, He being the Infinite Personality, is not unthinkable at all. And in such a case it is not unreasonable, but the deepest reason, to ask for no more than His articulate guarantee, so to speak, that the mystery is fact; that He is conscious of it, alive to it (speaking humanly); and that He avows it as His will. For when GOD, the God of Christ, bids us "take His will for it," it is a different thing from an attempt, however powerful, to frighten us into silence. It is a reminder WHO He is who speaks; the Being who is kindred to us, who is in relations with us, who loved us, but who also has absolutely made us, and cannot (because we are sheer products of His will) make us so much His equals as to tell us all. So the Apostle proceeds with a "_for_" whose bearing we have thus already indicated: [Sidenote: Ver. 15.] =For to Moses he says= (Exod. xxxiv. 19), in the dark sanctuary of Sinai, ="I shall pity whomsoever I do pity, and compassionate whomsoever I do compassionate";= My account of My saving action shall stop there. [Sidenote: Ver. 16.] =It appears (ἄρα) therefore that it,= the ultimate account of salvation, =is not of= (as the effect is "_of_" the first cause) =the willer, nor of the runner,= the carrier of willing into work, =but of the Pitier--God.= [Sidenote: Ver. 17.] =For the Scripture[154] says= (Exod. x. 16) =to Pharaoh,= that large example of defiant human sin, real and guilty, but also, concurrently, of the sovereign Choice which sentenced him to go his own way, and used him as a beacon at its end, ="For this very purpose I raised thee up,= made thee stand, even beneath the Plagues, =that I might display in thee My power, and that My Name,= as of the just God who strikes down the proud, =might be told far and wide (διαγγελῇ) in all the earth."=
Pharaoh's was a case of concurrent phenomena. _A man_ was there on the one hand, willingly, deliberately, and most guiltily, battling with right, and rightly bringing ruin on his own head, wholly of himself. _God_ was there on the other hand, making that man a monument not of grace but of judgment. And that side, that line, is isolated here, and treated as if it were all.