Romans 9:29

And, as Isaiah hath said before [This may mean, Isaiah has said this before me, so that I need not prophesy myself, but may appropriate his word, or, as earlier expositors (Erasmus, Calvin, Grotius, etc.) render it, Isaiah spoke the words which I am about to quote earlier than those which I have already quoted, the latter being Isaiah 10:22-23; and the former being at Isaiah 1:9. Since the apostle is proving his case by the Scripture and not resting it upon his own authority, the former reading seems out of place. It would be somewhat trite in Paul to state that Isaiah wrote before him! It is objected that the latter rendering states an unimportant fact. What difference can it make which saying came first or last? But it is not so much the order as the repetition of the saving that the apostle has in mind. Isaiah did not see some moment of national disaster in a single vision, and so cry out. He saw this destruction of all save a remnant in the very first vision of his book, and it is the oft-repeated burden and refrain of a large portion of his prophecies], Except the Lord of Sabaoth [Hebrew for "hosts"] had left us a seed [for replanting], We had become as Sodom, and had been made like unto Gomorrah. [Like "cities of which now," as Chalmers observes, "no vestige is found, and of whose people the descendants are altogether lost in the history or our species." (Comp. Jeremiah 50:40) In contrast with these, the Jews, though few in number, have ever been found in the kingdom of God. Since the section just finished is the stronghold of Calvinism, we should not leave it without noting that Simon Peter warns us not to put false construction upon it. He says: "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things" (a new heaven and a new earth), "give diligence that ye may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his [God's] sight, and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you; as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; wherein are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, knowing these things beforehand, beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, ye fall from you" own stedfastness" (2 Peter 3:14-17). Now, Paul uses the word "longsuffering" ten times. Seven times he speaks of the longsuffering of men. Once he speaks of the longsuffering of Christ extended to him personally and individually as chief of sinners. Twice (Romans 2:4-11; Romans 9:19-29) he fills the measure of Peter's statement, and writes that men should "account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation." As the first of these passages (Romans 2:4-11) has never been in dispute, it follows either that all have wrested it, or that none have wrested it, so that in either case its history does not comply with Peter's description. The passage before us, then, is the one which the ignorant and unsteadfast have wrested, and that so seriously that it has compassed their destruction. In further support of this identification, note (1) that this passage was, as we have seen, addressed to the Jews, and it therefore answers to the "wrote unto you" of Peter's letter, which was also addressed to Jews; (2) while "the longsuffering of God," etc., is not prominent in all Paul's Epistles, as we have just shown, the doctrine of election, which is the stumbling-block here, is a common topic with the apostle. Since, then, Peter warns us against wresting this section, let us see who wrests it. According to Peter, it is those who get a soul-destroying doctrine out of it, and such is Calvinism. It is those who derive from it a doctrine which palsies their effort, so that, believing themselves impelled by inexorable will and sovereign, immutable decree, they hold they can do nothing either to please or displease God, and therefore cease to "give diligence that they may be found in peace, without spot and blameless in his sight," and cease to "account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation," and thus, "being carried away with the error of the wicked" that human effort is of no avail, they cease to make any, and so "fall from their own stedfastness." Surely with so plain a warning from so trustworthy a source we are foolish indeed if we wrest this Scripture so as to make it contradict the doctrines of human free will and responsibility so plainly taught in other Scriptures.]