Mason Introduction
James Dodson
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A
SCRIPTURAL VIEW
AND
PRACTICAL IMPROVEMENT,
&c.
ROMANS xi. 25, 26, 27.
“For I would not, Brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. For this is my Covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.”
After the Apostle had discussed many important doctrines, in the eight chapters from the beginning of this Epistle, and before he had entered on the practical improvement of them, in the five chapters at the end of it, he introduces, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, a most instructive and prophetic discourse, concerning God’s holy and sovereign dispensations relative to the Jews and the Gentiles. He begins it with heaviness and sorrow, and concludes it with adoration and praise. “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” In this melancholy frame of mind he began to write this part of his Epistle; but the things he was inspired to record made him conclude it with wonder and joy. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever; Amen.” Chap. ix. 1, 2, 3.; xi. 33—36.
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When the Apostle had mentioned some of the peculiar privileges of the Jewish nation, ch. ix. 4, 5. he distinguishes betwixt those who were the spiritual children of Abraham by faith in Christ, and them who were his children only according to the flesh. He then illustrates the sovereignty of Divine grace and mercy to them who are saved, and applies that doctrine, ver. 24, to them who are effectually called both among the Jews and the Gentiles. He then mentions two predictions from the Book of Hosea, concerning the calling of the Gentiles; and two from the prophet Isaiah about the small remnant of the Jews who should believe in Christ, and be saved. He concludes this chapter by declaring that “the Gentiles who followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; but that Israel, who followed after the law of righteousness, had not attained to the law of righteousness, because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law; for they stumbled at the stumbling stone.”
At the beginning of chap. x. the Apostle states the effect which his heaviness and continual sorrow, for his kinsfolk according to the flesh, produced on him. “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” He attests their zeal for God; and yet, from their ignorance of Christ’s righteousness, and their love to their own, they were strangers to the righteousness of faith; for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. In the following part of this chapter, the Apostle describes the difference between the righteousness which is of the law, and the righteousness which is of faith; proves that there is no difference between the Jews and the Gentiles, as to their free access to Christ, and to salvation through him; points out the necessity of the preaching of the Gospel to the salvation of men; and shews, from plain Scripture predictions, the certainty both of the Gentiles’ calling, and the Jews’ rejection.
The Apostle begins the chapter which contains our subject, by representing that in his day, as well as in the days of Elias, there were some of his kinsfolk who believed unto salvation. “Even so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace,” verse 5. And in verse 7, he unfolds the true condition of the Jews: “What then? Israel,” or the great body of that people, “hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election,” or the small remnant, “hath obtained it, and the
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rest were blinded.” In the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses, he quotes the words of Isaiah and David, containing awful predictions, which were fulfilled on the great mass of the Jewish people. The Apostle, at verse 11, enters more particularly on the subject relative to the Jews and Gentiles, and continues it to the end of the chapter. In this part of his discourse, the three verses which I have now read to you are contained. They may be divided, in the following manner, into six parts.
I. The nature of the subject on which the Apostle writes to the Christians at Rome. He calls it a mystery: “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits.”
II. The mournful condition into which the Jews, by their unbelief, had brought themselves: “That blindness in part is happened to Israel.”
III. An account of the time at which their blindness shall be removed: “Until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.”
IV. The glorious deliverance that shall be wrought at that time for God’s ancient people: “And so all Israel shall be saved.”
V. A description of the way in which their salvation shall be accomplished: “As it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.”
VI. The grand foundation of all God’s merciful dispensations to Israel and Jacob: “For this is my covenant unto them, when I will take away their sins.”
It is proposed to consider each of these parts of this subject, in the inspired and natural order, in which they have now been mentioned.