WE find in this chapter the Apostle bringing before his brethren the Jews (though they are so vicious against him, he shows what a Christian spirit he had) the real affection of his heart toward them. Notwithstanding all they had done and were doing, his heart’s desire and prayer to God for them was “that they might be saved.” He points out here the stumbling-block which they placed before themselves. They were going about to establish their own righteousness. They were sure they were going to heaven by their own works in connection with the law, and that because they had no felt need of the righteousness which God provided, and that is the stumbling-block of the Jews to this day. They are stumbling to eternal ruin upon that. They are building their hope upon what they can do themselves and are refusing to submit to God’s righteousness. Then he shows that there is no difference under the Gospel between the Jew and the Greek, and he addresses them from the Old Testament Scriptures, their own Scriptures, that God indicated repeatedly in the Old Testament times what He was going to do in bringing into His Church a foolish nation and a people who had no belief at all at that time. He showed that the Gentiles would receive the Gospel, but, sad to say, my friends, the Gentiles are now refusing the Gospel, and turning their back on the Gospel of God’s grace and going away to vanities which shall not profit. I am only going to make a few remarks, as I do not intend to continue long as the time will not allow it. “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
I. We shall, first of all, consider a few things concerning the Apostle’s desire—the salvation of his own people the Jews. He was not only a Christian man, but a patriot of the highest standing that ever appeared in the world.
II. We will notice in the second place how he dealt with them so that they might be saved. He taught them that there was no salvation in any other but in Christ and Him crucified.
I. Let us notice a few things concerning the expression the Apostle gives here, and that in the Holy Ghost, of the desire of his heart towards his own people, the Jews.
(1). We shall notice how he appeals to them as his brethren according to the flesh, the seed of Abraham, who, though they had the means of grace among them for many generations, refused to acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah despite Scripture proofs to the contrary; and also that they had no need of the righteousness that the Apostle preached.
You see how much it affected him, and it ought to affect us, friends, and we hope it has been affecting us how, on account of their stubbornness in refusing to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, they have been down through so many centuries cast off, and the Scriptures being fulfilled as you find repeatedly stated by Moses at the very beginning of the Bible, that God would scatter them through all the nations of the world and turn the sword after them for refusing the Messiah, that they would be hated of all men and looked upon as cursed, so that has been the case since they were scattered about forty years after the crucifixion of Christ in Jerusalem. We do not think at all that the Jews as men are such as you can love generally for their own sake, but they are “beloved for the father’s sake,” and that it is through them Jesus came into the world. He reveals to them here that this was a matter that lay at his heart—”that they might be saved.”
(1). We shall notice a few things concerning this, and the first thing he brings before them here is—”that they had need of being saved.”
If you say to a man that he should be saved, who feels himself in no danger, as most generally do, he cannot understand what you mean. You see, men while they are in their natural state, their conscience is dead, their minds are in darkness as regards their ruined condition and God’s claims and His authority over them. They cannot understand at all why so much is being spoken of being saved. They feel themselves in no danger. But the Apostle brings before them here that they were in great danger, that they had committed a sin which would be their ruin, and that sin was—”that they did not submit to the righteousness of Christ.” He shows them that they had no need of saying: “Who shall ascend up to heaven?” They are looking still for Christ to come down from heaven. They are looking yet for the Messiah to come. He points out to them that that was on account of their ignorance. “Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above).” Christ means the “Messiah.” They held and hold still that Christ has not come, and they are looking for Him, and he appeals to them not to say this even in their hearts. The Messiah had come, and they had refused Him. He points out to them where their great sin lay. When the Messiah came, they did not know Him, as we have it in John’s Gospel:—”He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.” He proceeds to show not only that He had come, but goes further and says:—”Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:) Or, who shall descend into the deep (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead).” That was taking two great stumbling blocks out of the way of the Jews. They were not even to say in their hearts that the Messiah had not come, or that Jesus of Nazareth whom they crucified at Jerusalem was not He, and they were not to say in their hearts:—”Who shall bring Him up from the dead?” because He had risen, and these things were told them by many trustworthy witnesses whose evidence could not be gainsaid. The Apostle shows that these two fundamental truths that Jesus was the Messiah, and that God raised Him from the dead lay at the foundation of salvation and saving faith. The Apostle, although he told the Jews how much he loved them as his brethren, was not going to be unfaithful to them. He was showing them clearly what would cause their ruin if they perished in their unbelief, and then he says: “What saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thine heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach,” and that is to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and to believe in their heart that God had raised Him from the dead. These are the two fundamental doctrines that the Apostle, throughout the whole of his writings kept before the Jews, first of all, that Jesus was the Messiah, and in the second place that God raised up from the dead that very same Jesus whom they crucified at Jerusalem and that He is now at God’s right hand. These are the two stumbling blocks on which the Jews stumble to perdition to this day.
(2). We shall notice again in connection with this that he points out to them that they had made a great mistake, fundamental mistake, in believing that their own good works in obeying the law, the moral law, or that any endeavour to carry out the ceremonial law connected with their religious observance could justify them before God.
He points out to them that this was a fundamental mistake which would end in their everlasting ruin. They were building upon this, and it caused them to turn their back upon the righteousness which God was offering. That is true to-day; sinners expect they shall escape the consequences of sin by something that they will do themselves. You cannot convince men that that is not so, not only such as make no profession of religion, but the most of the religious people of our day think they are going to heaven by their own works. You see this is all the hope of the Jew. If this prop were taken away, the Jew would have at once to feel that he is lost. They are building upon this, generation after generation—that they are Abraham’s children, and that they are the people of God. It was to them that God committed His Word, and it was among them that He set up His means of grace in the world exclusive of all other nations of the earth, and they are building upon that to this day, and, if you were to have an argument with them—some of them, of course, are so violent that a man should not speak to them of Christ at all—however, we met some of them who could argue like gentlemen, and we found out distinctly that it is here that all their hope for eternity rests. They are the seed of Abraham, they are the chosen people of God, and, indeed, the Gentiles are not guiltless in this that they call them yet the people of God, although He has cast them off nineteen hundred years ago. Lying flattery never benefited a man and never will, neither will God accept of it. The poor Jews are resting upon a foundation of sand that allows them to drop down into eternal woe, for we are told distinctly that: “He that believeth not the Son of God shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him,” and that is one of the reasons why we feel—we think we can say—deeply at our heart for the poor Jews, and did for many, many a day. You see, the Apostle was not going to be unfaithful to them, whatever way they would take it, and they were certainly taking it in the worst possible way and endeavoured to take his life because he was pointing this out to them. This was one of the reasons why they almost took his life in Jerusalem and elsewhere, but he would not give it up while breath was in him. He loved their souls more than he loved their friendship at such a cost. He would be faithful to them even should they stone him to death. He was not going to have a hand in their everlasting ruin, and, therefore, he points out to them here that this was the root cause of their sin that they were going about to set up a righteousness of their own, and the second thing that they did not submit to the righteousness of Christ. Yes, and if you are thinking that your own righteousness will justify you, lay to heart where that will take you. They would not submit to the righteousness of Christ, and that because the sinner in his natural state feels no need of being saved, although God declares that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” the Jews do not believe it, the Gentiles do not believe it. I shall have to notice afterwards that it requires greater power than man’s to convince poor sinners, Jews or Gentiles, that they are without righteousness before God. Now, I desire to notice in connection with this what really we are to understand here by righteousness. Well, you must understand that God never justified any but righteous men—He justifies the ungodly that believe in Jesus—but, consider that, to pass a sentence of justification on a sinner who has got no righteousness before God is to do an injustice. God, my friend, will not justify any man without a righteousness, and He points out here that man has got none. He says in this Epistle at the beginning:—”There is none righteous, no, not one” of the whole seed of Adam; that does not mean but men hold that they are righteous as the Jews are doing here. If God will allow you to pass into eternity as you are without righteousness, one moment in eternity will give a sinner more light about the real state of men in eternity than any man ever had on this side of the grave. He points out to them that their own righteousness could never justify them before God, for they had none. It was only a delusion. No power of man will ever convince you that God will do what He says:—”Though hand join in hand, the wicked (that is the unconverted man) shall not go unpunished.” No, you see the Jews would not believe this, and the Apostle takes away this prop by saying that this was their sin: “going about to establish their own righteousness,” and upholding that God would be favourable towards them notwithstanding they were refusing and rejecting Christ, despising and rejecting Him in the Word of the Gospel. He shows them here that this was their sin that they did not submit to the righteousness of God, the righteousness that God provided for guilty men by sending His Son into the world to obey, and to suffer, and to die, in order that God’s law and justice might be fully vindicated, and the guilty sinner delivered. We see this was done, as we read that:—”He suffered the just for the unjust that He might bring us to God.” If men as guilty sinners betake themselves to this righteousness which God provides in the Gospel for guilty men—the obedience of the Son of God in the room of “all that will believe on Him,” and the satisfaction that the Son of God, in our nature, gave to justice in the room of guilty men in order that God might be just in justifying the ungodly, and that no sinner can be justified until this righteousness is imputed unto him by God. This righteousness is the righteousness of His own Son, in which God justifies the man or the woman who never did anything but sin, and who never could do anything but sin. Now this is the Gospel that the Apostle was preaching to the Gentiles, and it is the same that he was preaching to the Jews and showing that this was the stumbling block upon which they had stumbled, and that they would go to eternal woe if they would continue in unbelief under the curse as they were. We know very well how men deal now with them. Never a poor Jew was converted but just by telling the whole truth of God. It is not man’s invention at all that ever saved a sinner, nor man’s wisdom, but the power and wisdom of the Holy Ghost in accompanying the Word of Truth.
II. We shall notice in continuing to say a few words more concerning the statement which he uses here:—”Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
He points out that there was a way by which they might be saved—only one way—and there is only one way now. God had never any other way of saving guilty men since Adam fell. He revealed this that sin was not to be remitted or forgiven man except through blood, and He continued to show for 4000 years in the history of this world that justice was not to be satisfied for any sinner without the shedding of blood, as it is written:—”Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission.” That was God’s declaration, and He was stressing it down through the ages. All that had their sins forgiven believed it, and all the rest know now why it was revealed, as all who refuse it in our day will know it very soon too. He was teaching them also—”that the blood of bulls could never take away sin.” It was only purifying them with the cleansing of the flesh so that it allowed men to get into the congregation to worship God, but as regards giving peace to the conscience of the sinner, it never did that. His eye and his faith rested on the blood of the lamb, kid, or whatever creature it was he offered. There was no merit there. It was only a type. It was only what typified the blood of Christ. This was the way the Gospel was preached to the Jews, and also before the flood and after it. This was the way that Christ was preached to men in these sacrifices, but the sacrifices, we are told, were only “shadows of good things to come.” They were mere shadows; a shadow has no substance in it at all, and it was only those that looked beyond the sacrifice of the creature or the animal—it was only those that saw through these sacrifices the blood of Jesus Christ, or the sufferings of the Messiah, and that trusted in the merit of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice—it was only they that derived benefit for eternity.
I desire to notice, further, that since Christ came in the flesh men had continued to hold other kinds of sacrifices—you see that the greatest stumbling block in the Church of Rome, or the Anti-Christ, is that they are sacrificing Christ on their altars for the living and for the dead, and all they have there is but a little bit of cake, less than an ordinary tea biscuit, and this is now what Satan has given to so many millions of our fellow men to trust to instead of Christ—what the priest can do, and they think that if they will be partaking of this bit of bread—they do not give them the wine—that they are eating by the mouth Christ’s divinity and His soul and body, a whole Christ. They are getting this into their stomachs, and you would think that it would be very irrational to believe such superstition and idolatry, and still some learned and able minded men in the world are deluded by that superstition which has no foundation in Scripture or reason at all.
You see here the Apostle points out to them that Christ was the only Saviour; it was only through Him they might be saved, and he says that, before men would come to exercise faith in Christ, they would have to believe that the very Jesus who was condemned at Jerusalem and crucified on Calvary was the very Messiah that God promised as early as the Garden of Eden, and repeated the promise hundreds and hundreds of times, and, until they would believe that, all the rest was of no avail. He points out again that they were not only to believe that Jesus of Nazareth, who died upon Calvary’s Cross by their own hands, and whom God raised from the dead, was the very Christ, even He whom they murdered in hatred to His Person and work, and that it was the very Christ whom they rejected, whom they would have nothing to do with, who was the very Person whom God raised from the dead to His own Right Hand, and that He was there a “Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and remission of sin.” They were to believe all this. There was no Gospel for the Jews without this. Until they will believe this news or Gospel nothing is gained, for until they are convinced that the very Person whom they vilified, persecuted and crucified by the hands of wicked men, that that very Person was the Messiah whom God promised in Eden, promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, promised David, and pointed out the very place where He would be born and everything that He was to endure in the world even to the dividing of His clothes and to the piercing of His hands and feet. These things are all written down in their Book, the Old Testament, and they must believe this, and believe that Jesus of Nazareth was that Christ or else nothing is done. There is nothing done unless that point is gained, and that that very Christ whom they crucified and cursed down through the ages is the only Saviour of perishing men. It is to Him that they have to look for repentance for all that they have done and for forgiveness, and that is what is to be preached to them “repentance and remission of sins” in the name of Christ, because it is only in His name and through the merit of His blood and intercession, God forgives sins to Jew and Gentiles. This point is to be kept before the Jews because the first offer of Christ was given to them, and that text is not withdrawn yet—”And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” He never withdrew that, but we have to be very careful what we preach that nothing is put aside, or that they are not to have from any man any encouragement to continue in their unbelief for one day, for God demands of them that they should turn from their own righteousness and look to Christ, the very Christ whom they crucified and did hide their faces from Him. He is the only Saviour and He is still offered to the very people that crucified Him.
But I have just one other thing to mention and then I must stop, that is: the Apostle was fully conscious of this fact that, however, faithfully he might set before the Jews as clearly as he could put it in words whereon they were stumbling, what really it was that would end in their eternal ruin if they would continue in it, and also the only way by which they might be saved. He repeatedly brings before the Jews and the Gentiles that it is God’s Spirit—the Holy Ghost—that can quicken the dead and that through the Word. See you, how the Jews responded to this doctrine on the Day of Pentecost. What an extraordinary work was done under one sermon. See, it is not, my friends, in his own strength a man is to go out at all, not depending upon what he can do or say. There is too much of that. Men can put fine prayers together and have a good voice and learning. A little oratory is supposed to be good food to give to guilty men’s consciences by some men. We do not despise learning, but we do despise science so called for the Holy Ghost and for Christ. Man is to depend upon the Spirit and never to devise anything in connection with the service of God in the world among Jews and Gentiles, of sin, and see you, when they waited for the and upon Christ’s promise which is: that He will send the promise of the Father, the Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, and when He would come He would reprove the world, that is Jews and Gentiles, of sin, and see you, when they waited for the Spirit in Jerusalem what extraordinary work was done when he came on the Day of Pentecost. There were three thousand saved by a sermon preached at nine o’clock in the morning, and Dr Owen was of the opinion that the five thousand who believed at three o’clock in the afternoon were also converted on the Day of Pentecost. If so, there were eight thousand added to the Church in one day and that by the convincing and converting and quickening power of God the Holy Ghost through the Word of Truth, and that is, my friends, what is promised to-day; and His power is the same, and He is as able to convince thousands of Jews now as then, and men should keep their eye on that:—“It is the Spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing.”