Romans 9:4

f. The intensity of Paul's distress, and of his longing for the salvation of his countrymen, is partly explained in this verse. It is the greatness of his people, their unique place of privilege in God's providence, the splendour of the inheritance and of the hopes which they forfeit by unbelief, that make their unbelief at once so painful, and so perplexing. οἵτινές εἰσιν Ἰσραηλεῖται : being, as they are, Israelites. Israelites is not the national but the theocratic name; it expresses the spiritual prerogative of the nation, cf. 2 Corinthians 11:22; Galatians 6:16. ὧν ἡ υἱοθεσία : this is not the Christian sonship, but that which is referred to in such passages as Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1. Yet it may be wrong to speak of it as if it were merely national; it seems to be distributed and applied to the individual members of the nation in Deuteronomy 14:1; Hosea 2:1 (Romans 2:1 Heb.). ἡ δόξα : the glory must refer to something definite, like the pillar of cloud and fire, the כְּבוֹד יהוה of the O.T., the שׁכִינָה of later Jewish theology; there is probably reference to it in Acts 7:2; Hebrews 9:5. αἱ διαθῆκαι : in other places Paul speaks of the O.T. religion as one covenant, one (legal) administration of the relations between God and man (e.g. in 2 Corinthians 3): here, where αἱ διαθῆκαι is expressly distinguished from ἡ νομοθεσία (the great Sinaitic legislation: 2Ma 6:23), the various covenants God made with the patriarchs must be meant. Cf. Wis 18:22, Sir 44:11, 2Ma 8:15. ἡ λατρεία is the cultus of the tabernacle and the temple, the only legitimate cultus in the world. αἱ ἐπαγγελίαι are the Messianic promises: in the Israelitish religion “the best was yet to be,” as all the highest minds knew. Romans 9:5. ὧν οἱ πατέρες : Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The greatness of its ancestry ennobled Israel, and made its position in Paul's time harder to understand and to endure. Who could think without the keenest pain of the sons of such fathers forfeiting everything for which the fathers had been called? But the supreme distinction of Israel has yet to be mentioned. ἐξ ὧν ὁ Χριστὸς τὸ κατὰ σάρκα, ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας. Ἀμήν. The only point in the interpretation of this verse, in which it can be said that interpreters are wholly at one, is the statement that of Israel the Messiah came, according to the flesh. The words τὸ κατὰ σάρκα define the extent to which the Messiah can be explained by His descent from Israel; for anything going beyond σάρξ, or ordinary humanity, the explanation must be sought elsewhere. The limitation suggests an antithesis, and one in which the spiritual or Divine side of the Messiah's nature should find expression, this being the natural counterpart of σάρξ : and such an antithesis has been sought and found in the words which follow. He who, according to the flesh, is of Israel, is at the same time over all, God blessed for ever. This interpretation, which refers the whole of the words after ἐξ ὧν to ὁ Χριστὸς, is adopted by many of the best scholars: Gifford, Sanday, Westcott (see N.T., vol. ii., app., p. 110), Weiss, etc., and has much in its favour. (1) It does supply the complementary antithesis which τὸ κατὰ σάρκα suggests. (2) Grammatically it is simple, for ὁ ὢν naturally applies to what precedes: the person who is over all is naturally the person just mentioned, unless there is decisive reason to the contrary. (3) If we adopt another punctuation, and make the words ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς εὐλογητὸς εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας a doxology “God Who is over all be blessed for ever” there are grammatical objections. These are (a) the use of ὤν, which is at least abnormal. “God Who is over all” would naturally be expressed by ὁ ἐπὶ πάντων θεὸς without ὤν : the ὢν suggests the reference to Christ. (b) The position of εὐλογητὸς is unparalleled in a doxology; it ought, as in Ephesians 1:3 and the LXX., to stand first in the sentence. But these reasons are not decisive. As for (1), though a complementary antithesis to τὸ κατὰ σάρκα is suggested, it is not imperatively demanded here, as in Romans 1:3 f. The greatness reflected upon Israel by the origin of the person in question is sufficiently conveyed by ὁ Χριστός, without any expansion. As for (2), it is true to say that ὁ ὢν naturally refers to what precedes: the only question is, whether the natural reference may not in any given case be precluded. Many scholars think it is precluded here. Meyer, for instance, argues that “Paul has never used the express θεὸς of Christ, since he has not adopted, like John, the Alexandrian form of conceiving and setting forth the Divine essence of Christ, but has adhered to the popular concrete, strictly monotheistic terminology, not modified by philosophical speculation even for the designation of Christ; and he always accurately distinguishes God and Christ”. To this he adds the more dubious reasons that in the genuine apostolic writings (he excludes 2Ti 4:18, 2 Peter 3:18; Hebrews 13:21, and Rev.) there is no doxology to Christ in the form usual in doxologies referring to God, and that by ἐπὶ πάντων the Son's subordination is denied. To these last arguments it may be answered that if the words in question do apply to Christ they are not a doxology at all (Gifford), but a declaration of deity, like 2 Corinthians 11:31, and that Christ's subordination is not affected by His being described as ὁ ὢν ἐπὶ πάντων any more than by His own claim to have all authority in heaven and on earth. But the first of Meyer's arguments has a weight which it is impossible not to feel, and it becomes the more decisive the more we realise Paul's whole habit of thought and speech. To say with Dr. Gifford, “When we review the history of the interpretation it cannot but be regarded as a remarkable fact that every objection urged against the ancient interpretation rests ultimately on dogmatic presuppositions,” hardly covers such a position as Meyer represents. For the “dogmatic presuppositions” are not arbitrary, but merely sum up the whole impression made. on the mind by the study of Paul's writings, an impression by which we cannot but be influenced, especially in deciding delicate and dubious questions like this. If we ask ourselves point blank, whether Paul, as we know his mind from his epistles, would express his sense of Christ's greatness by calling Him God blessed for ever, it seems to me almost impossible to answer in the affirmative. Such an assertion is not on the same plane with the conception of Christ which meets us everywhere in the Apostle's writings; and though there is some irregularity in the grammar, and perhaps some difficulty in seeing the point of a doxology, I agree with those who would put a colon or a period at σάρκα, and make the words that follow refer not to Christ but to the Father. This is the punctuation given in the margin by W. and H., and “alone seems adequate to account for the whole of the language employed, more especially when considered in relation to the context” (Hort, N.T., vol. ii., app., p. 110). The doxology is, indeed, somewhat hard to comprehend; it seems at the first glance without a motive, and no psychological explanation of it yet offered is very satisfying. It is as if Paul, having carried the privileges of Israel to a climax by mentioning the origin of the Messiah as far as regards His humanity, suddenly felt himself face to face with the problem of the time, how to reconcile these extraordinary privileges with the rejection of the Jews; and before addressing himself to any study or solution of it expressed in this way his devout and adoring faith, even under the pressure of such a perplexity, in the sovereign providence of God. The use of ὢν, which is in itself unnecessary, emphasises ἐπὶ πάντων; and this emphasis is “fully justified if St. Paul's purpose is to suggest that the tragic apostasy of the Jews (Romans 9:2-3) is itself part of the dispensations of Him Who is God over all, over Jew and Gentile alike, over past, present and future alike; so that the ascription of blessing to Him is a homage to His Divine purpose and power of bringing good out of evil in the course of the ages (Romans 11:13-16; Romans 11:25-36)”: W. and H., ii., app., p. 110. Full discussions of the passage are given in Meyer, S. and H., and Gifford; also by Dr. Ezra Abbot in the Journal of the Society of Biblical Exegesis, 1883. With this preface Paul proceeds to justify the ways of God to men: see the introductory remarks above. The first section of his argument (Romans 9:6-29) is in the narrower sense a theodicy a vindication of God's right in dealing as He has dealt with Israel. In the first part of this (Romans 9:6-13) he shows that the rejection of the mass of Israel from the Messianic Kingdom involves no breach or failure of the Divine promise. The promise is not given to all the natural descendants of Abraham, but only to a chosen seed, the Israel of God.