Commentari biblici

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

My heart’s desire — So it should be ours. See my True Treasure, chap. vii. sect. 2.

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For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

They have a zeal of God — So had those two Rabbis, David Rubenita and Shelomoh Molchu, that set upon the Emperor Charles v. to persuade him to Judaism, and were therefore put to a cruel death, A. D. 1530. (Alsted. Chron.) So had Latimer before his conversion: I was as obstinate a Papist, saith he, as any was in England: insomuch that when I should be made Bachelor in Divinity, my whole oration went against Philip Melancthon and his opinions, … Being a priest, and using to say mass, he thought he had never sufficiently mingled his massing wine with water: and moreover that he should never be dammed, if he were once a professed friar; with various such superstitious fantasies. (Acts and Mon.) Zeal without knowledge is as wild fire in a fool’s hand; it is like the devil in the demoniac, that casts him sometimes into the fire and sometimes into the water.

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For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

For they being ignorant — The soul that is without knowledge is not good, and he that (without knowledge) hasteth with his feet, sinneth, Proverbs 19:2 ; the faster he goeth, the farther he is out.

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For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

For Christ is the end, … — q.d. Ay, and for Christ’s sake, is the righteousness of God. But the Jews submit not to Christ, therefore not to the righteousness of God. Christ, saith Austin, is Legis finis interficiens, et perficiens. The ceremonial law he hath slain and taken out of the way: the moral law he hath fulfilled for us, and we by him, so by faith in his name, which maketh his obedience to become ours.

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For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.

Shall live by them — This do and live; that is, saith Luther, morere, to delay, die out of hand: for there is no man lives and sins not. We can as little cease to sin as the pulse to beat, heart to pant, …

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But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above :)

Say not in thine heart — The law preacheth faith in Christ, as well as the gospel.

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Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)

Into the deep — Those deeps of the earth, Psalms 71:20 .

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But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;

The word is nigh thee — Moses meant it of the law, but it more fitly agreeth to the gospel. The babe of Bethlehem is swathed up in the bands of both Testaments: he is author, object, matter, and mark of both. Therefore if we will profit in hearing, teaching, reading, we must have the eye of our minds turned toward Christ, as the faces of the cherubims were toward the mercy seat.

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