Romans 11:13-15

are a more particular application to St. Paul's ministry of the ideas expounded Romans 11:11-12; for this ministry had a decisive part to play in accomplishing the plan of God sketched in these two last verses; and the feelings with which Paul discharged his apostleship must be in harmony with the course of God's work. This is exactly what he shows in these three verses.

Vv. 13-15. “ For I say it to you Gentiles: Inasmuch as I am an apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the restoring of them be, but a resurrection from the dead? ”

It is somewhat difficult to decide between the two readings γάρ (for) and δέ (now then). The authorities are balanced; but it is probable that the δέ, now, has been substituted for for, because the observation which begins Romans 11:13 was connected with the preceding verse in this sense: “Now I tell you that (the preceding) specially you Gentiles.” And as this connection is decidedly mistaken, and the apostle's observation refers manifestly to what follows (Romans 11:13-15), there is reason to believe that the true connection is that which is expressed by for. And in fact the natural transition from Romans 11:11-12 to Romans 11:13-15 is this: “What I have just told you of the magnificent effects which will one day be produced among you Gentiles by the restoration of the Jews, is so true that it is even in your interest and as your apostle, the apostle to you Gentiles, that I strive to labor for the salvation of the Jews; for I know all that will one day accrue to you from their national conversion, a true spiritual resurrection (Romans 11:15).” There is a wholly different and widespread way of understanding the meaning of these three verses. It is to take Romans 11:13-14 as a sort of parenthesis or episode, and to regard Romans 11:15 as a somewhat more emphatic repetition of Romans 11:12; comp. for example, Romans 11:9-10 of chap. 5. In that case, what the apostle would say in this parenthesis (Romans 11:13-14) would be this: “If I labor so ardently in my mission to the Gentiles, it is that I may thereby stimulate my fellow-countrymen, the Jews, to seek conversion.” It is the opposite thought from that which we have been expressing. This meaning occurs in almost all the commentaries. But, 1st. It is impossible to understand how Paul could say that as the apostle of the Gentiles; he would rather say it though their apostle and as a Jew by birth. 2d, After an interruption like that of Romans 11:13-14, it would be unnatural to make the for of Romans 11:15 bear on Romans 11:12. This is what renders the case so different from that of chap. Romans 5:9-10. Let us study our text more closely, and we shall certainly be led to the first meaning which we have stated. The emphasis is not on the fact that in laboring for the conversion of the Gentiles he is laboring in the end for that of the Jews which is undoubtedly true, Romans 11:13-14 but on the fact that in laboring thus for the conversion of the Jews he is in that very way laboring for the good of the Gentiles, who are his proper charge, Romans 11:13-15.

To you, Gentiles: Baur and his disciples (Volkmar, Holsten), and also Mangold, allege that this style of address embraces only a fraction of the church, the members of Gentile origin, who are only a weak minority. Meyer rightly answers that in that case Paul must have written: Τοῖς ἒθνεσιν ἐν ὑμῖν λέγω, “I address those of you who are of Gentile origin.” Weizsäcker, in the often quoted work (p. 257), likewise observes with reason, that the form employed being the only direct style of address used to the readers in this whole passage, it is natural to apply it to the entire church; that one may consequently conclude from these words with the utmost certainty that members of Gentile origin formed the preponderating element in this church. We shall ask further, if in the opposite case Paul could have called the Jews my flesh, as speaking in his own name only, while the great majority of his readers shared with him the characteristic of being Judeo-Christians.

And what does the apostle say to those Gentiles who have become believers? The conjunction ἐφ᾿ ὅσον may signify as long as, or inasmuch as. It is clear that the notion of time has no application here, and that the second sense is the only possible one; comp. Matthew 25:40. By this expression Paul distinguishes in his own person two men: one, in whose name he is here speaking; that is, as he says, the apostle of the Gentiles. Who is the other? That is understood of itself, and the following expression: μου τὴν σάρκα, which should be translated by: my own flesh (in consequence of the prominent position of the pronoun μου), reveals it clearly enough: it is the Jew in him. What does he mean then? That if as a Jew who has become a believer he certainly feels the desire to labor for the salvation of his fellow-countrymen (his flesh), he strives all the more to do so as the apostle of the Gentiles, because the conversion of his people must end in loading the Gentiles with all the riches of the blessings of the gospel. The sequel will explain how (Romans 11:15). In this connection of ideas there is no doubt that the μέν, which the T. R. reads after ἐφ᾿ ὅσον, and which is rejected by the Greco-Latin reading, belongs really to the text. For this particle is intended to fix and bring out forcibly the character belonging to Paul of apostle to the Gentiles, in opposition to the other which he also possesses. The word is supported, besides, even by the Alexs., which read μὲν οὖν. As to this οὖν, therefore, added by the latter, it is evidently, as Meyer himself acknowledges, a gloss, occasioned by the fact that the first proposition was connected with Romans 11:12, in order to begin afterward a wholly new sentence.

What does Paul understand by the expression: I magnify mine office? These words might be applied to the defences which he was constantly obliged to make of his apostleship, to the narratives in which he proclaimed before the churches the marvellous successes which God granted him (Acts 15:12; Acts 21:19; 1 Corinthians 15:9-10). But instead of contributing to bring the Jews to faith (Romans 11:14), such recitals could only embitter them. It is therefore of the zeal and activity displayed by him in the service of his mission that the apostle is thinking. To magnify his ministry as the apostle of the Gentiles, is to convert as many heathens as possible. And thereby at what remoter result is he aiming? He tells us in Romans 11:14.