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az Tim. ii. 7.
IX. 1. ᾽ΑΛΗΘΕΙΑΝ λέγω ἐν μοι τῆς συνειδήσεώς µου ἐν
Gentiles into it represented the carrying out of God’s purpose to bless and save men, God must have turned His back upon Himself; He must have broken His promise to Israel, and cast off His chosen people. But as this must seem impossible, the Jewish inference would be that the Gospel preached by Paul could not be of God, nor the Gentile Churches, as Paul asserted, God’s true Israel. This is the situation to which the Apostle addresses himself in the ninth and the two following chapters. It isa historical problem, in the first instance, he has to deal with, not a dogmatic one; and it is necessary to keep the historical situation in view, if we are to avoid illegitimate inferences from the argu- ments or illustrations of the Apostle. After the introductory statement (ix. 1-5), which shows how deeply his heart is pledged to his brethren after the flesh, he works out a solution of the problem —or an interpretation of the position —along three lines. In each of these there are many incidental points of view, but they can be broadly discriminated. (α) In the first, chap. ix. 6-29, Paul asserts the absolute freedom and so- vereignty of God as against any claim, made as of right, on the part of man. The Jewish objection to the Gospel, to which reference is made above, really means that the Jewish nation had a claim of right upon God, giving them a title to salvation, which God must ac- knowledge; Paul argues that all God’s action, as exhibited in Scripture, and especially in the history of Israel itself— to say nothing of the essential relations of Creator and creature—refutes such a claim. (2) In the second, chap. ix. 30- x. 21, Paul turns from this more specu- lative aspect of the situation to its moral character, and points out that the explanation.of the present rejection of the Jews is to be found in the fact that they have wilfully and stubbornly rejected the Gospel. Their minds have been set on a righteousness of their own, and they have refused to submit themselves to the righteousness of God. (3) In the third, chap. xi., he rises again to an absolute or speculative point of view. The present unbelief of the Jews and incoming of the Gentiles are no doubt, to a Jew, dis- concerting events; yet in spite of them, or rather—which is more wonderful still —by means of them, God’s promises to