Romans 3:29-31 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:… The writings of Paul have met with a singular fate. They were intended to reveal the Father's universal and impartial love; they have been used to represent Him as an exclusive and arbitrary Sovereign. They were designed to open the kingdom of God to all men; and they have been so distorted as to shut it on the many and confine it to the few. The great design of Paul was to vindicate the spiritual right of the race against the exclusive bigotry of the Jews; to manifest God as the Father of all men, and Christ as the Saviour, not of one narrow nation, but the whole world. Note, then, from the text — I. THE DOCTRINE THAT GOD IS "THE GOD OF THE GENTILES." To understand the fall import of this, we must consider that to the Jew the Gentiles were odious. He thought it pollution to eat with them. He called them dogs. He claimed God as exclusively his God. Could we fully comprehend this, we should be filled with admiration for the moral grandeur manifested in the text. Paul, in writing them, not only offered violence to all his earliest and deepest impressions, but put his life in peril. 1. God is "the God of the Gentiles," and do we not respond to this truth? The heathen had indeed wandered far from God; and to the Jews He seemed to have forsaken them utterly. But how could the universal Father forsake the millions of His creatures? Judaea was but a speck on the globe. Was the Infinite One to be confined to this? Could His love be stinted to the few to whom He had specially revealed His will? In the very darkest ages God was "the God of the Gentiles." They had their revelation. Light from heaven descended into their souls. They had the Divine law "written in their hearts." God keep us from the horrible thought that the myriads who are buried in heathen darkness are outcasts from His level Their spiritual wants should indeed move our compassion; and the higher light is given us that we may send it to these brethren. 2. That God is "the God of the Gentiles," we learn from the wonderful progress which human nature made in heathen ages. Remember Greece. God's gift of genius — one form of inspiration — was showered down on that small territory as on no other region under heaven. To Greece was given the revelation of beauty, which has made her literature and art, next to the Holy Scriptures, the most precious legacy of past ages. In that wonderful country amidst degrading vices were manifested sublimest virtues. Undoubtedly Grecian philosophy was an imperfect intellectual guide, and impotent as a moral teacher. But was not God the God of the Gentiles when He awakened in the Greeks such noble faculties of reason, and by their patriotic heroism carried so far forward the education of the human race? 3. God is "the God of the Gentiles"; and He was so just when He separated from them His chosen people. For why was the Jew set apart? That "all families of the earth might be blessed." Judaism was a normal school to train up teachers for the whole world. The Hebrew prophet was inspired to announce an age when the knowledge of God was to cover the earth as waters cover the sea. Nothing in the history of the Jews shows them to us as God's personal favourites, for their history is a record of Divine rebukes, threatenings, and punishments. Their very privileges brought upon them peculiar woes. In ages of universal idolatry they were called to hold forth the light of pure Theism. They betrayed their trust, and when the time came for the "partition wall" to be prostrated, and for the Jews to receive the Gentile world into brotherhood, they shrank from their glorious task; and rejecting mankind, they became themselves the rejected of God. Meanwhile, faith in the one true God has been spread throughout the Gentile world. Thus we see that, in the very act of selecting the Jew, the universal Father was proving Himself to be the God of the heathen, even when He seemed to reject them. 4. This doctrine is one which we Christians still need to learn. For we are too apt, like the Jew, to exalt ourselves above our less favoured brethren. It is the doctrine of the mass of Christians even now that the heathen are the objects of God's wrath. But how can a sane man credit for an instant that the vastly greater portion of the human race is abandoned by God? But Christianity nowhere teaches this horrible faith. And, still more, no man in his heart does or can believe such an appalling doctrine. II. THE UNIVERSAL PRINCIPLE CONTAINED IN THIS DOCTRINE. The language of the text contains an immutable truth for all ages, viz., that God loves equally all human beings; that the Father has no favourites; that in His very being He is impartial and universal Love. 1. This grand truth is taught in nature. God's works are of the same authority with His Word. The universe teaches that God is the God of all, and not of the few. God governs by general laws, which bear alike on all beings, and are plainly instituted for the good of all. We are placed under one equitable system, which is administered with inflexible impartiality. This sun, does he not send as glad a ray into the hovel as into the palace? Does the rain fall upon a few favoured fields? or does the sap refuse to circulate except through the flowers and trees of a certain tribe? Nature is impartial in her smiles. She is impartial also in her frowns. Who can escape her tempests, earthquakes, raging waves? Young and old, the good and evil, are wrapped in the same destroying flame, or plunged in the same overwhelming sea. Providence has no favourites. Pain, disease, and death break through the barriers of the strong and rich, as well as of the humble and the poor. 2. In religion the universal Father is revealed as working in the human soul, and as imparting to man His own Spirit. God's Spirit knows no bounds. There is no soul to which He does not speak, no human abode into which He does not enter with His best gifts. From the huts of the poor, from the very haunts of vice, from the stir of very active business, as well as from the stillness of retired life, have come forth the men who, replenished with spiritual gifts, have been the guides, comforters, lights, regenerators of the world. III. THIS PRINCIPLE AS APPLIED TO OURSELVES. 1. Is God the Father of the rich only? Is He not also the Father of the poor? The prosperous are prone to feel as if they are a different race from the destitute. But to the Possessor of heaven and earth, how petty must be the highest magnificence and affluence! Does the Infinite Spirit select as His special abode the palace and fly from the hut? On the contrary, if God has a chosen spot on earth, is it not the humble dwelling of patient, unrepining, trustful, virtuous poverty? From the dwellings of the downcast, from the stern discipline of narrow circumstances, how many of earth's noblest spirits have grown up! May we not still learn a lesson of Divine wisdom from the manger at Bethlehem? 2. Is God the God of the good only, or, is He not also the God of the wicked? God indeed looks, we may believe, with peculiar approval on the good. But He does not desire spiritual perfection and eternal happiness for them more than He does for the most depraved. The Scriptures even seem to represent God as peculiarly interested in the evil. "There is joy in heaven over," etc. The good do not and ought not to absorb God's love. We in our conceited purity may withdraw from them, may think it pollution to touch them, may say, "Stand off." But God says to His outcast child, "Come near." Do I speak to those who have escaped gross vice? Bless God for your happiness, but set up no insuperable barrier between yourself and the fallen. In conclusion, let us ask ourselves, What was the guilt of the Jews against which the apostle protested? What was it that scattered their nation like chaff throughout the earth? Their proud separation of themselves from their race. And will not the same spirit bring the same ruin upon us? Separation of ourselves from our race is spiritual death. It is like cutting off a member from the body; the severed limb must perish. This spirit of universal humanity is the very soul of our religion. As yet its heavenly power is scarcely felt. Therefore it is that so few of the blessings of Christianity appear in Christendom. We hold this truth in words. Who feels its vitalising power? When brought home as a reality in social life it will transform the world. All other reforms of society are superficial. But a better day is coming. Cannot we become the heralds of this better day? Let our hearts bid it welcome! Let our lives reveal its beauty and its power! (W. E. Channing, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:WEB: Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn't he the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, |
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