tained in the oracles of God never to be fulfilled?"

This question is answered in the second part of Romans. In it the Holy Spirit shows how righteously and mercifully God deals with the Jews and Gentiles, and the end of the section, our chapter, shows most blessedly that God has not cast away His people; a time of their fullness and reception is coming and all Israel shall be saved.

The chapter in its construction is very simple. In the preceding one we read: "But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was manifested unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people." The quotation is from Isaiah lxv:1, 2, and in it the call of the Gentiles is plainly foretold as well as God's attitude towards His own people Israel. Now if God is found of them (the Gentiles) and manifested unto them that asked not after Him, and if His own people have no answer to His hands stretched forth towards them, would one not be justified to say He has cast away His people? The eleventh chapter therefore asks this very question: "Hath God cast away His people?" This question is

the great superscription of this chapter. The fact that God has not cast away His people is demonstrated throughout the chapter. Up to the 27th verse the Holy Spirit gives seven answers and proofs to this question that His people, Israel, are not finally nor completely cast away. After this fact is demonstrated comes the great and sublime ending (verses 28-36) corresponding to the ending of the doctrinal part of the Epistle in the eighth chapter. We shall follow in our exposition these seven answers and proofs.

They are the following:

I. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus (verse 1).

II. There is a remnant according to the election of Grace, hence Israel is not completely cast away (verses 2-6).

III. The blindness of Israel is partial and judicial. It is never complete nor final. The Scriptures prove this fact (verses 7-10).

IV. Salvation has come to the Gentiles by their fall and by it God wishes to provoke them to jealousy (verse 11).

V. There is a promised fullness and receiving of Israel which according to the prophetic Word will mean greater riches for the world, even life from the dead (verses 11-15).

VI. The parable of the olive tree (verses 16-24).

VII. The mystery made known (verses 2527).

Look at the question first and its answer. The answer is best translated by "Far be the thought." "God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew." The question of the casting away of Israel* is, of course, a national question and not the question of the individual. God had foreknown His people and called them to a distinctive and peculiar place in the government of the earth. The nation is called to be a peculiar treasure unto the Lord above all people, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, a people prepared to show forth His praises (Exod. xix). God's gifts and calling are without repentance. Throughout the Word He declares that Israel should never cease to be a nation before Him and that they shall be at last that in the earth, as a nation, for which He called them. "Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the

*We take it for granted that all our readers believe that Israel, God's ancient people, the natural seed of Abraham, is meant. How one can speak in this chapter of a spiritual Israel and that the Church is meant is beyond our conception.

ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of hosts is His name; if those ordinances depart from me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Lord: If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah xxxi:35-37). "For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee; though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee, but I will correct thee in measure and will not leave thee altogether unpunished" (Jerem. xxx:11). Numerous other passages could be quoted in which God assures His people that He will never abandon them forever. Their past history proves this. Again and again God's firstborn Son, Israel, (Ex. iv:22) had been disobedient, a stiffnecked people. They were punished and led into captivity, their city plundered and razed, their temple burned and their land laid waste, and still God's infinite mercy hovered over the people and the land and He never said that He hath cast them away. Then a

part of the nation, the Jews, rejected their Messiah and King, who had come to His own; they cried their awful "Away with Him!" "Crucify Him!" "His blood be upon us and upon our children!" Yet from that cross there came that wonderful prayer, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Again the offers of Grace were spurned by the nation, and those of the nation who had believed were bitterly persecuted and some murdered by their unbelieving brethren, and yet over all the Spirit of God hath put the assuring statement, "God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew." The temple was laid in ruins once more, the nation peeled and scattered into the corners of the earth. Their saddest dispersion began and with it trials and sufferings such as their previous history had not known, and still over this great dispersion and all their terrible experiences the Spirit of God has placed these words: "God hath not cast away His people whom He foreknew."

What a different answer Christendom has to this question. If the Jew asks of Christendom the question about his national future, the promises of blessing and glory, he receives a strange answer. Or if he turns to the great commentators on the Bible he finds