Ver. 27.
to
Ver. 29.
Meanwhile the Prophets who foretell that great ingathering indicate with equal solemnity the spiritual failure of all but a fraction of the lineal heirs of promise. But Isaiah cries over[158] Israel, "If the number of the sons of Israel should be as the sand of the sea, the remnant only shall be saved; for as one who completes and cuts short will the Lord do His work (λόγον, דבר) upon the earth."[159] Here again is a first and second incidence of the prophecy. In every stage of the history of Sin and Redemption the Apostle, in the Spirit, sees an embryo of the great Development. So, in the wofully limited numbers of the Exiles who returned from the old captivity he sees an embodied prophecy of the fewness of the sons of Israel who shall return from the exile of incredulity to their true Messiah. And as Isaiah (i. 9) has foretold (προείρηκεν), so it is; "Unless the Lord of Hosts (Σαβαώθ, צבאות) had left us a seed,[160] like Sodom we had become, and to Gomorrah we had been resembled."
Such was the mystery of the facts, alike in the older and in the later story of Israel. A remnant, still a remnant, not the masses, entered upon an inheritance of such ample provision, and so sincerely offered. And behind this lay the insoluble shadow within which is concealed the relation of the Infinite Will to the wills of men. But also, in front of the phenomenon, concealed by no shadow save that which is cast by human sin, the Apostle sees and records the reasons, as they reside in the human will, of this "salvation of a remnant." The promises of God, all along, and supremely now in Christ, had been conditioned (it was in the nature of spiritual things that it should be so) by submission to His way of fulfilment. The golden gift was there, in the most generous of hands, stretched out to give. But it could be put only into a recipient hand open and empty. It could be taken only by submissive and self-forgetting faith. And man, in his fall, had twisted his will out of gear for such an action. Was it wonderful that, by his own fault, he failed to receive?|Ver. 30.
to
Ver. 33.| What therefore shall we say?[161] Why, that the Gentiles, though they did not (τὰ μὴ) pursue righteousness, though no Oracle had set them on the track of a true divine acceptance and salvation, achieved righteousness, grasped it when once revealed, but[162] the righteousness that results on faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, aiming at what is, for fallen man, the impossible goal, a perfect meeting of the Law's one principle of acceptance, "This do and thou shalt live," did not attain that law[163]; that is to say, practically, as we now review their story of vain efforts in the line of self, did not attain the acceptance to which that law was to be the avenue. The Pharisee as such, the Pharisee Saul of Tarsus for example, neither had peace with God, nor dared to think he had, in the depth of his soul. He knew enough of the divine ideal to be hopelessly uneasy about his realization of it. He could say, stiffly enough, "God, I thank Thee" (Luke xviii. 11, 14); but he "went down to his house" unhappy, unsatisfied, unjustified. On what account? Because it was not of faith, but as of works[164]; in the unquiet dream that man must, and could, work up the score of merit to a valid claim. They stumbled[165] on the Stone of their (τοῦ) stumbling; as it stands written (Isai. viii. 14, xxviii. 16), in a passage where the great perpetual Promise is in view, and where the blind people are seen rejecting it as their foothold in favour of policy, or of formalism, Behold, I place in Sion, in the very centre of light and privilege, a Stone of stumbling, and a Rock of upsetting; and he who[166] confides in Him, (or, perhaps, in it,) he who rests on it, on Him (ἐπ' αὐτῷ), shall not be put to shame.
One great Rabbi at least, Rashi, of the twelfth century, bears witness to the mind of the Jewish Church upon the significance of that mystic Rock. "Behold," so runs his interpretation, "I have established a King, Messiah, who shall be in Zion a stone of proving."
Was ever prophecy more profoundly verified in event? Not for the lineal Israel only, but for Man, the King Messiah is, as ever, the Stone of either stumbling or foundation. He is, as ever, "a Sign spoken against." He is, as ever, the Rock of Ages, where the believing sinner hides, and rests, and builds,
"Below the storm-mark of the sky,
Above the flood-mark of the deep."
Have we known what it is to stumble over Him? "We will not have this Man to reign over us"; "We were never in bondage to any man; who is He that He should set us free?" And are we now lifted by a Hand of omnipotent kindness to a place deep in His clefts, safe on His summit, "knowing nothing" for the peace of conscience, the satisfaction of thought, the liberation of the will, the abolition of death, "but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified"? Then let us think with always humbled sympathy of those who, for whatever reason, still "forsake their own mercy" (Jonah ii. 8). And let us inform them where we are, and how we are here, and that "the ground is good." And for ourselves, that we may do this the better, let us often read again the simple, strong assurance which closes this chapter of mysteries; "He who confides in Him shall not be put to shame"; "shall not be disappointed"; "shall not" in the vivid phrase of the Hebrew itself, "make haste." No, we shall not "make haste." From that safe Place no hurried retreat shall ever need to be beaten. That Fortress cannot be stormed; it cannot be surprised; it cannot crumble. For "It is He"; the Son, the Lamb, of God; the sinner's everlasting Righteousness, the believer's unfailing Source of peace, of purity, and of power.