through them it should come to the Gentiles. In this presupposition Paul agrees with the first apostles (§ 43, a), since, according to him, salvation is appointed for the Jew first (Rom. i. 16). So long as the conversion of Gentiles remained an isolated event, and the body of the Church consisted of Jewish Christians, this prerogative of Israel remained untouched; but when, through the apostles' mission to the Gentiles, these were brought in numbers into the Church, and the whole character of the Church became preponderatingly Gentile Christian, the question must arise, how the calling of the Gentiles is to be adjusted to Israel's election-an election which even for Paul formed the inalienable pre-eminence of Judaism (§ 72, d). If Paul, moreover, by the way in which, according to the history of the Acts, he always turned first to the Jews, preserved in principle this prerogative of Israel (comp. Pfleiderer, p. 509 [E. T. ii. 243]), yet was it in fact thereby a little changed; the special work given to him was, according to § 89, d, the mission to the heathen as such, and the result of that-a result, besides, far surpassing that of all the apostles-was the formation of a Gentile Church, which before Israel, and in the place of Israel, became a sharer in the Messianic salvation. This also was to be justified to the consciousness of the Apostle of the Gentiles only in this way, that the Gentiles, though not the natural descendants of Abraham, were yet received into the saving fellowship of Israel. By an act of the divine power and goodness were the branches of the wild olive tree engrafted into the noble olive tree, whose root are the patriarchs (xi. 16-24, especially vv. 17, 22, 24; comp. Eph. ii. 11-13, 19); and thus it was Israel, as descended from them, which had received the promise, if even in the new form it had assumed through the incorporation of believing Gentiles. Yet the ideal of the theocracy is first realized in it (comp. § 44, 45), whose representative is no longer the earthly Jerusalem with her children (Gal. iv. 25), but the higher Jerusalem, which is called the Mother of Christians (ver. 26). Yet it was no such quid pro quo, so glib to us, but to the Israelitish consciousness quite inconceivable, by which one puts Abraham's spiritual children, without more ado, into the place of his bodily seed, by which Paul removed that difficulty. He rather

referred Gal. iii. 16, the Abrahamitic promise, to Christ, who was really the natural σπέρμα Αβραάμ. If, now, those who are not the natural seed of Abraham have obtained the promise given to that seed, it has come about only because they in virtue of their living fellowship with Christ have entered into union with Him, by which they cannot be excluded from the child's right of inheritance, which that seed in the original sense had obtained (vv. 28, 29, and therewith § 83, d, footnote 5).

(d) The thought, that even those who were not the bodily descendants of Abraham might come into participation in Israel's salvation, was by no means strange to Judaism (comp. § 44, d). All proselytes entered in this way into fellowship in the blessings of Abraham; but that fellowship was complete, to be sure, only when they accepted circumcision and the law. It was therefore but a very natural demand on the part of the Judaizers, if they required the same from the Gentiles who wished to obtain a share in the Messianic salvation. The early apostles, according to § 43, c, had declined this demand, and Paul could by no means yield to it, because then the Gentiles, not as such, but only after they had become Jews, were called to the Christian Church. He seeks to show, therefore, that Abraham, when he obtained justification by faith (§ 82, 6),-and, according to Rom. iv. 13, this is the condition for obtaining the whole salvation promised him, was yet uncircumcised (vv. 9, 10), rather he just received circumcision as the seal of justification by faith, given him in his foreskin (ver. 11). He sees in this an explicit intention of God to show that justification (and therewith the obtaining of salvation) does not depend on circumcision, but only on this, that one be like Abraham in faith, and in so far his spiritual child, whether he be circumcised or not (vv. 11, 12). Thus is the promise to be made good to the whole seed of Abraham, not to him only who is so on the ground of the law, in virtue of bodily descent and circumcision, but to him also who is so in this metaphorical sense (comp. § 21, c, footnote 1; § 83, d), in virtue of essential likeness to Abraham through faith (ver. 16). He shows

1 Here, therefore, when Paul conceives the ☛xípμa of the Abrahamic covenant collectively, he does not by any means change the natural seed without more

similarly, Gal. iii. 2-5, that the Gentile Christians had received the gift of the Spirit on the ground of faith, as Abraham had received justification (ver. 6), that they therefore in respect of their faith are children of Abraham in a metaphorical sense (ver. 7). If he now wishes to account for the Gentiles sharing in the blessing of Abraham, he does not appeal without more ado to a child's right and a right of inheritance given in some way with this relation of metaphorical sonship, but to this, that a blessing is promised, Gen. xii. 3, to all nations in fellowship with Abraham (ver. 8), and therefore, as this promise was given to believing Abraham, only believers in fellowship with believing Abraham can be blessed (ver. 9).2

§ 91. The Hardening and the Conversion of Israel.

The rejection of Israel going hand in hand with the calling of the Gentiles, seems to be the most striking contradiction to the promise given irrevocably to this people (a). But God's dealings in the early history of the nation show, that with the promise given to the nation as such no security is given to each individual, naturally descended from the father, that he shall share in it (b). Those shut out from salvation are shut out in consequence of their stumbling at Christ, and on ado into the spiritual (comp. note c), but he points out that the unconditional acceptance of the children of Abraham, those who are so simply in a metaphorical sense, to participation in the rights of children, is proved by the significant appointment of God with respect to the time of Abraham's justi fication, as also by the condition with which it is connected, and that the promise, Gen. xvii. 5, points to a fatherhood of Abraham in this larger sense, because Abraham did not become the natural father of many nations, ver. 17.

2 Here, therefore, the transference of the rights of Abraham's natural children to his spiritual is expressly sought to be justified, and in this it is implied that the former rights remain essentially untouched. Pfleiderer, p. 317 [E. T. ii. 44], here seeks for an abrupt anti-Judaistic tendency; but that is excluded by the blessing uttered, Gal. vi. 16, over the Israel of God, i.e. over believing Israel (as the xaí can only mean 'even," comp. Hofmann in loc.). The slave with her son who was turned out, and was not to be heir with the son of the free woman (iv. 30 ff.), is not natural Israel, as Pfleiderer, p. 316 [E. T. ii. 43], supposes, but, according to vv. 25, 29, Israel prepossessed by legalism persecuting Christianity, i.e. unbelieving Israel. It is not hence any "irenical tendency" of the Epistle to the Romans, if, along with and before the spiritual children of Abraham, the natural (in so far as they are believing) obtain a share in his inheritance.

account of their inexcusable opposition to the new institution of salvation; they have through their own guilt fallen under the curse of hardening, and this, according to God's plan, must have the effect of turning the salvation withdrawn from them to the Gentiles (c). Nevertheless, there yet remains a remnant that has attained salvation; and even the temporary preference of the Gentiles has this object as its end, to stir up the Jews to jealousy, and so by God's mercy to lead the whole nation to salvation (d).

(a) What may have appeared the most startling fact in connection with the calling of the Gentiles, was that the casting away of Israel, at least of the greater portion of Israel, went hand in hand with it. The engrafting of the wild. branches implied the breaking away of the natural branches (Rom. xi. 19). If Christian missions in the person of their most successful worker turned to the Gentiles, then the blessing of such missions would be withdrawn from the people of Israel: Paul expressly announces it as a judgment to the Jews, that the preaching of the gospel, by which the calling is realized, has been turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles (Acts xiii. 46, xxviii. 28); and the Acts of the Apostles shows on purpose how this came to pass through his missionary activity. By the withdrawal of the preaching of the gospel, however, the way to salvation was shut to them, although κarà púσiv kλádoi (Rom. xi. 24). They were yet shut out from the root and fatness of the olive tree (ver. 17), i.e. from the salvation promised to the fathers, in which the Gentiles had obtained a share by their being grafted in (§ 90, c). And yet the promise transmitted from the fathers was the inalienable possession of Israel, and they still continued to be a people beloved of God for the fathers' sake (xi. 28). God could not possibly cast away His people just because they did not behave as they ought to have done, as He had foreknown them before He chose them to be His people (ver. 2). If they were therefore unfit to receive salvation, yet God with such foreknowledge of their unfitness had chosen them to be His people; but if He had once chosen them, their unfaithfulness could not remove God's faithfulness towards His own promise (iii. 3; comp. § 72, d, footnote 6). God could not withdraw gifts of grace given

them, and His calling in particular (xi. 29).1 The question of which Paul (Rom. ix.-xi.) so fully treats was from his premises a problem not easy to solve; one which much occupied his heart, moved as he was by patriotic sorrow for his fellow-countrymen (ix. 1–3, x. 1).

(b) That many who were descended from Abraham, and seemed on that account to have a claim on the salvation promised to the seed of Abraham, did not yet attain to that salvation, was therefore an undoubted fact. But Paul asserts, that not all those who were naturally descended from the ancestor of the nation (πάντες οἱ ἐκ Ισραήλ) formed the Israel to whom the promise was given (Rom. ix. 6); not all those who are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh have the right of children, which secures them a share in the promise given to Abraham (ver. 7). And so it is by no means to be said that the seed of Abraham, to whom the promise was given, is not to be taken in a special sense, but only that the promise given to the nation as such does not apply without more ado to each single individual who, in virtue of actual descent from the patriarchs, belongs to it, that individuals may even be left empty, if only the nation as such receives the promise.2 Paul

1

1 Beyschlag has evidently overlooked this when he says, p. 42, that it lies in the very idea of free mercy, that there is nothing it gives less ground for than a claim of right for all time coming, that it can be withdrawn again from those who have once received it. But the divine mercy is no doubt free in the selection of its objects (Rom. ix. 15); but to whomsoever God has once bound Himself by a promise, to him He must ever keep it. Paul traces back the mission of Christ to Israel to God's faithfulness, according to which He was bound to keep His promise given to the fathers (xv. 8; comp. Pfleiderer, 314 f. [E. T. ii. 41]). If in the election of the individual no such irrevocableness exists (§ 88, d), that is accounted for in this way, that the free conduct of the individual is simply incalculable, and is not conditioned for all time coming by what is historically known of its quality. Even on this account we will see how even the election of Israel gives no security to the individual members of the nation that they will attain the end of that election.

That this is thought quite in the tenor of the Old Testament promise, is clear from this, that the prophets ever keep firm hold of the realization of the promise to the nation, just as they threaten many individuals with destruction in the divine judgments which precede pre-Messianic times (comp. § 42, c; 44, c). When Beyschlag, p. 29, and Schenkel, p. 273, on the other hand, assert that, according to Paul, the promise is fulfilled to the spiritual Israel (of Jews and Gentiles mingled), that is again only that quid pro quo which would have spared the apostle and us all those reasonings brought forward (§ 90, c, d), had it occurred to him. If Paul says (Rom. ii. 25) the circumcision which does not