Romans 9:1

[In Part I. of his Epistle (chaps. 1-8) Paul presented the great doctrine that righteousness and salvation are obtained through faith in Jesus Christ. But the unbelief of the Jews excluded them Generally from this salvation, yet "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22). The doctrine, and the situation engendered by it, raised before the minds of Paul's readers several great questions, such as these: How could Scripture, which promised blessings to the Jews, be fulfilled in a gospel which gave blessings to Gentiles to the exclusion of Jews? The covenants to Abraham guaranteed blessings to his seed, how, then, could the gospel be the fulfillment of these covenants when it brought blessing and salvation to the Gentiles, and rejection and damnation to the Jews, the seed of Abraham? It is for the purpose of answering these and kindred questions which naturally arose out of the doctrine of the first part of his work, that this second part was written. As these questions arose out of the history of Israel, Paul naturally reviews that history, so Tholuck calls this second part of his work "a historical corollary." The apostle's effort is to show that the gospel of Christ, while it conflicts with the false doctrinal deductions which the Jews drew from their history, agrees perfectly with all correct deductions from that history.] I say the truth in Christ [This is not an oath. Some modern, and most of the earlier, commentators suppose it is; but they forget that Deuteronomy 6:13 is repealed at Matthew 5:33-37. If it were an oath, we would, in the absence of any verb of swearing, have the Greek preposition pros ("by") with the genitive, but instead we have en ("in") with the dative. His asseveration is, however, as solemn and binding as an oath, and is designed to give vehement emphasis to his words--comp. 2 Corinthians 2:17 : as though he said, "I speak the truth, for Christ is true, and I am a member in Christ, and he himself, therefore, speaks through me"--comp. Galatians 2:20; Philippians 1:21], I lie not [Such a coupling of the positive and negative for purposes of emphasis is common to Scripture. See Deuteronomy 33:6; Isaiah 38:1; John 1:20], my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit [my conscience, though enlightened, guided and made more than literally sensitive and accurate by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, still testifies that in this I am wholly and unequivocally truthful],