Your website title

GOD IS

This is a free website created with hPage.com.

*God IS

*Our mission is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ absolutely free. We do not want donation. We only want you to know the truth.

1.) God is not a man.

Num 23:19, “God is not a man, that He would lie,

Nor a son of man, that He would change His mind;

Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He

spoken, and will He not make it good?”

A.) Man lies. Japan is a nation made of 100% lies and falsehoods. Japan lies about everything. World leaders and politicians lie without shame.

B.) Man changes his mind.

C.) Man does not keep his word.

God is not a man. If God is a man, his children would be in great troubles.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

God is not a man, that he should lie,.... Man is a creature consisting of a body of flesh and blood, and of a soul, a created and finite spirit; but God, though he has the parts of an human body ascribed to him in a figurative sense, yet is not to be conceived of in a corporeal manner; and though he is a Spirit, yet eternal, immense, and infinite; and much less is as a sinful man, who goes astray from the womb speaking lies; no, let God be true, and every man a liar: he is God, that cannot lie; his counsels of old are faithfulness and truth; his promises yea and amen in Christ; the Scriptures inspired by him are true, and the prophecies of them are punctually accomplished, particularly what he foretold of the people of Israel, and promised unto them; that they should be happy, and inherit the land of Canaan; that be would be true and faithful to them, and there could be no hope, by any means whatever, to make him false and unfaithful to his word: neither the son of man, that he should repent; repentance is found in men, who repent for what they have done, or change their minds, as to what they intended to do or set about; perceiving it to be wrong to do it, or that they are able to do it, some unforeseen thing turning up they were not aware of: but nothing of this kind belongs to God, or can befall him; he never changes his mind, alters his counsels, purposes, and decrees, and never varies in his affections to his people, nor makes void his choice of them, or covenant with them; and his calling of them by his grace, and his gifts of grace bestowed upon them, are without repentance: and particularly with respect to the people of Israel, there was no reason to hope or believe that God would change his purposes or promises respecting their outward happiness, and enjoyment of the land of Canaan; or that ever he would be prevailed upon to curse them, or admit them to be cursed, when he was determined, and had so peremptorily promised that he would bless them:

hath he said, and shall he not do it? or "hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" whether it be with regard to things temporal, spiritual, or eternal; for there is no variableness nor shadow of turning in his mind; he never forgets his word, he foresees all events, he is able to perform, and is true and faithful; and therefore whatever is gone out of his lips will never be altered, but will be most certainly fulfilled, Psalm 89:34 Isaiah 14:24.”

2.) Deu 1:25, “And they took some of the fruit of the land in their hands and brought it down to us. They also brought us back a report and said, ‘The land that the LORD our God is about to give us is good.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:19-46 Moses reminds the Israelites of their march from Horeb to Kadesh-barnea, through that great and terrible wilderness. He shows how near they were to a happy settlement in Canaan. It will aggravate the eternal ruin of hypocrites, that they were not far from the kingdom of God. As if it were not enough that they were sure of their God before them, they would send men before them. Never any looked into the Holy Land, but they must own it to be a good land. And was there any cause to distrust this God? An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God's laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God's salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.”

3. ) Deu 3:22, “Do not fear them, for the LORD your God is the One fighting for you.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

3:21-29 Moses encouraged Joshua, who was to succeed him. Thus the aged and experienced in the service of God, should do all they can to strengthen the hands of those who are young, and setting out in religion. Consider what God has done, what God has promised. If God be for us, who can be against us, so as to prevail? We reproach our Leader if we follow him trembling. Moses prayed, that, if it were God's will, he might go before Israel, over Jordan into Canaan. We should never allow any desires in our hearts, which we cannot in faith offer up to God by prayer. God's answer to this prayer had a mixture of mercy and judgment. God sees it good to deny many things we desire. He may accept our prayers, yet not grant us the very things we pray for. It God does not by his providence give us what we desire, yet if by his grace he makes us content without, it comes to much the same. Let it suffice thee to have God for thy Father, and heaven for thy portion, though thou hast not every thing thou wouldst have in the world. God promised Moses a sight of Canaan from the top of Pisgah. Though he should not have the possession of it, he should have the prospect of it. Even great believers, in this present state, see heaven but at a distance. God provided him a successor. It is a comfort to the friends of the church of Christ, to see God's work likely to be carried on by others, when they are silent in the dust. And if we have the earnest and prospect of heaven, let these suffice us; let us submit to the Lord's will, and speak no more to Him of matters which he sees good to refuse us.

4.) Deu 4:24, “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”

For the wicked, God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - A consuming fire. When God spoke to Israel at Sinai, his glory appeared "like devouring (consuming) fire on the top of the mount" (Exodus 24:17); and in allusion to this Moses here calls God "a consuming fire." He is so to all his enemies, and to all who disobey him; by severe inflictions he will punish, and, if they persist in their hostility and rebellion, will ultimately destroy them (comp. Deuteronomy 9:3; Isaiah 10:16-18; Amos 5:6; Zephaniah 1:18; Hebrews 12:29). A jealous God; LXX., Θεὸς ζηλωτής God has a burning zeal for his own glory; he guards it with jealous care; and he will not spare those who do him dishonor, especially those who are guilty of idolatry, whereby they "change the truth of God into a lie" (Romans 1:25; cf. Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 6:14, 15; Deuteronomy 32:16, etc.; Psalm 78:58, etc.; Nahum 1:2). He is jealous also over his people, because he loves them, and will not endure any rival in their affection and devotion.
CHAPTER 4:25-49 Deuteronomy 4:24.”

5. ) Deu 4:31, “For the LORD your God is a compassionate God; He will not abandon you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the Lord thy God is a merciful God,.... In Christ, in whom he has proclaimed his name as such, of which Moses had a comfortable view, Exodus 34:6 and therefore could attest it from his own knowledge and experience:

he will not forsake thee; though in a strange country, but bring them from thence into their own land again, and favour them with his gracious presence in his house and ordinances:

neither destroy thee; from being a people; and in a very wonderful manner are they preserved among the nations of the earth to this day:

nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which he sware unto them; that a Saviour should come and turn away ungodliness from them, and take away their sins; see Romans 11:26.”

Psa 116:5, “Gracious is the LORD, and righteous;

Yes, our God is compassionate.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Gracious is the Lord - This fact was his encouragement when he called on God. He believed that God was a gracious Being, and he found him to be so. Compare the notes at Hebrews 11:6.

And righteous ... - Just; true; faithful. This, too, is a proper foundation of appeal to God: not that we are righteous, and have a claim to his favor, but that he is a Being who will do what is right; that is, what is best to be done in the case. If he were an unjust Being; if he were one on whose stability of character, and whose regard for right, no reliance could be placed, we could never approach him with confidence or hope. In this sense we may rely on his justice - his justness of character - as a ground of hope. Compare the notes at 1 John 1:9 : "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us Our sins."

6. ) Deu 7:21, “You are not to be terrified of them, because the LORD your God is in your midst, a great and awesome God.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

21. Thou shalt not be affrighted] This, combined with the verb be afraid (Deuteronomy 7:18), is found in Pl. passages.
in the midst of thee] Deuteronomy 6:15.
great God and … terrible] Cp. Deuteronomy 10:17, Deuteronomy 28:58, the same epithets of the wilderness Deuteronomy 1:19, Deuteronomy 8:15, and of Jehovah’s deeds Deuteronomy 10:21. Terrible, in E, Genesis 28:17 of the presence of God; nowhere else before D, for Exodus 34:10 is editorial, but very frequent in post-deuteronomic writings.
Deuteronomy 7:21.”

7. ) Deu 10:17, “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. God of gods, and Lord of lords] Heb. idiom for the highest God and Lord (cp. Deuteronomy 10:14, heaven of heavens).
the great God, the mighty, and the terrible] The Heb. can also mean, as in A.V., a great God, etc.; or the superlative, the God, the greatest, most mighty, and terrible. This is probably to be preferred. Yet even so there is no assertion, such as we find in exilic and post-exilic writers, of the sole Godhead of Jehovah. See above on Deuteronomy 6:4.
regardeth not persons] Lit. lifteth not up faces (opposed to turning away faces), i.e. either by granting their requests (Genesis 19:21) or receiving them graciously (Genesis 32:20); or by being inordinately influenced by them (Job 32:21); or, as here, by showing them an unjust partiality (cp. Deuteronomy 28:50). The same idea concerning human judges is found in Deuteronomy 1:17, but expressed by another verb.
reward] or, bribe, Exodus 23:8, R.V. a gift. See further on Deuteronomy 16:19.”

8. ) Deu 20:4, “for the LORD your God is the One who is going with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For the Lord your God is he that goeth with you,.... To battle, and therefore they had no reason to fear and be dismayed, to be fainthearted, terrified, and tremble:

fear not, I am with thee,.... Isaiah 41:10, this, according to the Misnah (f), respects the ark, and so Jarchi, which was a symbol of the divine Presence, and went with them to battle; see Joshua 6:4.

to fight for you against your enemies, to save you; to annoy and destroy the one, and to protect and save the other; thus far the anointed priest addressed the people in an oration to this purpose: the account Maimonides gives of it is, that"when they have set their ranks, and are near to a battle, the anointed of war stands on an high place, and all the ranks before him, and says to them in the holy tongue, "hear, O Israel", &c. unto to save you; and then another priest under him causes it to be heard by all the people with an high voice (g);''he repeated what the anointed of war had said, and expressed it with a loud voice, that all might hear.”

9.) Deu 33:27, “The eternal God is a hiding place,

and underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from you, And said, ‘Destroy!'

Benson Commentary

Deuteronomy 33:27. The eternal God — He who was before all worlds, and will be when time shall be no more; is thy refuge — Or, thy habitation, or mansion-house, (so the word signifies,) in whom thou art safe, and easy, and at rest, as a man in his own house. Every true Israelite is at home in God: the soul returns to him, and reposes in him. And they that make him their habitation shall have all the comforts and benefits of a habitation in him. And underneath are the everlasting arms — The almighty power and infinite goodness of God, which protects and comforts all that trust in him, in their greatest straits and distresses. He shall thrust out the enemy from before thee — He shall expel the Canaanites, and make room for you in their country. And shall say, Destroy them — That is, shall give you power, as well as authority, to root them out. For to say is to command, and what he commands he gives power to execute. And has he not commanded believers to destroy, in themselves, all sin; all evil tempers and corrupt inclinations, as well as all sinful words and actions; and will he not give them power so to do, if they apply to him for it?.”

10.) Jos 1:13, “Remember the word which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is giving you rest, and will give you this land.'

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Remember the word] Numbers 32:20-24 is quoted, not literally, but freely according to the sense.
hath given you rest] Comp. Deuteronomy 25:19, “It shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it.” Into this “rest” the disobedient did not enter (Numbers 14:28-30; Psalm 95:7-11; Hebrews 3:11-18), but the true “Rest,” the complete “Sabbath-keeping,” still remaineth for “the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9).
this land] Compare Joshua 1:2 and Deuteronomy 3:18, the land in which the whole people as yet and the speaker also were, the land east of the Jordan.”

Even today, the land God gave to the Jews is contested by Arabs, Hamas, Palestinians, Hezbollah, Yemen, etc.

11.) Jos 3:10, “And Joshua said, “By this you will know that the living God is among you, and that He will assuredly drive out from you the Canaanite,

the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. the living God] Comp. Deuteronomy 5:26, “For who is there of all flesh, that hath heard the voice of the living God?” This title is applied to God to indicate that He is not dead, like the “lying vanities” of heathenism (Leviticus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:21; Jonah 2:8), but the source of all life.
the Canaanites] Seven nations are here enumerated, as also, though in varying order, in Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 9:1; Joshua 11:3; Joshua 24:11.
(i) The Canaanites (Deuteronomy 1:7), or “Lowlanders” properly so called, occupied (a) the sea-coast as far north as Dan; (b) a considerable portion of the plain of Esdraelon; and (c) of the Valley of the Jordan (Numbers 13:29).
(ii) The Hittites, descended from Heth, the second son of Canaan, and settled in the time of Abraham in and round Hebron (Genesis 23:19; Genesis 25:9), then called Kirjath-Arba. At that time the tribe was as yet but small and not important enough to be noticed beside the “Canaanite” and the “Perizzite.” Afterwards they acquired greater strength, and took their place as equal allies with the other nations.
(iii) The Hivites are omitted (a) in the first enumeration of the nations, who, at the time of the call of Abraham, occupied the Promised Land (Genesis 15:19-21); (b) in the report of the spies (Numbers 13:29). We first hear of them when Jacob returned to Canaan (Genesis 34:2). A peaceful and commercial people (Genesis 34:10; Genesis 34:23; Genesis 34:28-29), they were mainly located “under Hermon, in the land of Mizpeh” (Joshua 11:3), in “mount Lebanon, from mount Baal-hermon unto the entering in of Hamath” (Jdg 3:3; 2 Samuel 24:7).
(iv) The Perizzites, which word is thought to denote “rustics,” “dwellers in the open, unwalled towns,” were located partly in the south (Jdg 1:4-5), partly in the forest country “on the western flanks of mount Carmel.”
(v) The Girgashites are conjectured to have been a large family of the Hivites, as they are omitted in nine out of the ten places in which the nations or families of Canaan are mentioned, while in the tenth they are mentioned and the Hivites omitted. They are supposed to have been settled in that part of the country which lay to the east of the Lake of Gennesareth.
(vi) The Amorites, or “Mountaineers,” occupied (Genesis 14:7) the barren heights west of the Dead Sea, and stretched west to Hebron (Genesis 13:18; Genesis 14:13); thence, tempted probably by the high tablelands on the east, they crossed the Jordan, and occupied the country from the Arnon to the Jabbok (Numbers 21:13; Numbers 21:26). In the genealogical table of Genesis 10 “the Amorite” is given as the fourth son of Canaan.
(vii) The Jebusites are uniformly placed last in the formula, by which the Promised Land is often designated. They were a mountain tribe, and occupied the strong fortress of Jebus (Jerusalem).”

12.) 2Sa 22:33, “God is my strong fortress;

and He sets the blameless on His way.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

This song, which is found with scarcely any material variation as Psalm 18, and with the words of this first verse for its title, belongs to the early part of David's reign when he was recently established upon the throne of all Israel, and when his final triumph over the house of Saul, and over the pagan nations 2 Samuel 22:44-46, Philistines, Moabites, Syrians, Ammonites, and Edomites, was still fresh 2 Samuel 21. For a commentary on the separate verses the reader is referred to the commentary on Psalm 18.

The last words of David - i. e., his last Psalm, his last "words of song" 2 Samuel 22:1. The insertion of this Psalm, which is not in the Book of Psalms, was probably suggested by the insertion of the long Psalm in 2 Samuel 22.

David the son of Jesse said ... - The original word for "said" is used between 200 and 300 times in the phrase, "saith the Lord," designating the word of God in the mouth of the prophet. It is only applied to the words of a man here, and in the strikingly similar passage Numbers 24:3-4, Numbers 24:15-16, and in Proverbs 30:1; and in all these places the words spoken are inspired words. The description of David is divided into four clauses, which correspond to and balance each other.”

13.) 2Ch 2:5, “The house which I am about to build will be great, for our God is greater than all the gods.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 5, 6. - The contents of these verses beg some special observation, in the first place, as having been judged by the writer of Chronicles matter desirable to be retained and put in his work. To find a place for this subject amid his careful selection, and rejection in many cases, of the matter at his command, is certainly a decision in harmony with his general design in this work. Then, again, they may be remarked on as spoken to another king, who, whether it were to be expected or no, was, it is plain, a sympathizing hearer of the piety and religious resolution of Solomon (ver. 12). This is one of the touches of history that does not diminish our regret that we do not know more of Hiram. He was no "proselyte," but he had the sympathy of a convert to the religion of the Jew. Perhaps the simplest and most natural explanation may just be the truest, that Hiram for some long time had seen "the rising" kingdom, and alike in David and Solomon in turn, "the coming" men. He had been more calmly and deliberately impressed than the Queen of Sheba afterwards, but not less effectually and operatively impressed. And once more the passage is noteworthy for the utterances of Solomon in themselves. As parenthetically testifying to a powerful man, who could be a powerful helper of Solomon's enterprise, his outburst of explanation, and of ardent religious purpose, and of humble godly awe, is natural. But that he should call the temple he purposed to build "so great," as we cannot put it down either to intentional exaggeration or to sober historic fact, must the rather be honestly set down to such considerations as these, viz. that in point of fact, neither David nor Solomon were "travelled men," as Joseph and Moses, for instance. Their measures of greatness were largely dependent upon the existing material and furnishing of their own little country. And further, Solomon speaks of the temple as great very probably from the point of view of its simple religious uses (note end of ver. 6) as the place of sacrifice in especial rather than as a place, for instance, of vast congregations and vast processions. Then, too, as compared with the tabernacle, it would loom "great," whether for size or for its enduring material. Meantime, though Solomon does indeed use the words (ver. 5)," The house.., is great," yet, throwing on the words the light of the remaining clause of the verse, and of David's words in 1 Chronicles 29:1, it is not very certain that the main thing present to his mind was not the size, but rather the character of the house, and the solemn character of the enterprise itself (1 Kings 8:27; 2 Chronicles 6:18). Who am I... save only to burn sacrifice before him? The drift of Solomon's thought is plain - that nothing would justify mortal man, if he purported to build really a palace of residence for him whom the heaven of heavens could not contain, but that he is justified all the more in "not giving sleep to his eyes, nor slumber to his eyelids, until he had found out a place" (Psalm 132:4, 5) where man might acceptably, in God's appointed way, draw near to him. If "earth draw near to heaven," it may be confidently depended on that heaven will not be slow to bend down its glory, majesty, grace, to earth. 2 Chronicles 2:5.”

14.) 1Ch 17:2, “Then Nathan said to David, “Do whatever is in your heart, for God is with you.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:1-27 David's purposes; God's gracious promises. - This chapter is the same as 2Sa 7. See what is there said upon it. It is very observable that what in Samuel is said to be, for thy word's sake, is here said to be, "for thy servant's sake," ver. 19. Jesus Christ is both the Word of God, Re 19:13, and the Servant of God, Isa 42:1; and it is for his sake, upon account of his mediation, that the promises are made good to all believers; it is in him, that they are yea and amen. For His sake it is done, for his sake it is made known; to him we owe all this greatness, from him we are to expect all these great things. They are the unsearchable riches of Christ, which, if by faith we see in themselves, and see in the Lord Jesus, we cannot but magnify as the only true greatness, and speak honourably of them. For this blessedness may we look amidst the trials of life, and when we feel the hand of death upon us; and seek it for our children after us.”

15.) 2Ch 30:9, “For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your sons will find compassion in the presence of those who led them captive, and will return to this land. For theLORD your God is

gracious and compassionate, and will not turn His face away from you if you return to Him.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For if ye turn again unto the Lord,.... To the fear or worship of the Lord, as the Targum:

your brethren and your children shall find compassion before them that lead them captive, so that they shall come again into this land; who had been carried away by Tiglathpileser, see Psalm 106:46,

for the Lord your God is gracious and merciful; so he had proclaimed his name, as they must know, Exodus 34:6,

and will not turn away his face from you; in wrath and anger; or withdraw his Shecaniah from you, as the Targum; his gracious and glorious presence:

if ye return unto him; his fear and worship, as the same paraphrase.”

16.) Ezr 8:22, “For I was ashamed to request from the king troops and horsemen to protect us from the enemy on the way, because we had said to the king, “The hand of our God is favorably disposed to all who seek Him, but His power and His anger are against all those who abandon Him.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. I was ashamed] same word as in Ezra 9:6 ‘I am ashamed’, Jeremiah 31:19 ‘I was ashamed’.
to require] R.V. to ask. The simplest rendering for the commonest word.
a band of soldiers and horsemen] Such an escort as Nehemiah had, Nehemiah 2:9, ‘Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen’.
a band of soldiers] This word is rendered δύναμιν by the LXX. and ‘auxilium’ by the Vulgate. It is the word rendered ‘army’ in the passage just quoted (Nehemiah 2:9) and in Nehemiah 4:2; it is a word of frequent occurrence, e.g. 2 Kings 6:14, ‘horses, and chariots, and a great host’. Here it simply means ‘armed men’.
against the enemy in the way] against ‘the enemy’ generally. No enemy in particular, Samaritan (Ezra 4:1) or Syrian, is contemplated. Rather the reference is to the robbers and Bedouins of the desert, who night easily inflict damage upon a large caravan by robbing stragglers and harassing the line of march.
The hand of God] cf. on Ezra 7:6.
upon all them for good that seek him] R.V. upon all them that seek him, for good. The word rendered ‘seek’ here (biqqêsh) differs from hat rendered by the same English word in Ezra 4:2, Ezra 6:21, Ezra 7:10 (dârash). Both words occur in the same verse in Deuteronomy 4:29, ‘But if from thence he shall seek (biqqêsh) the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him if thou search after (dârash) him with all thy heart and all thy soul’. This word (biqqêsh) is the commonest, denoting ‘to look for’, e.g. Ezra 2:62; Genesis 37:16; Psalm 24:6.
for good] cf. Ezra 7:9; Nehemiah 2:18.
his power and his wrath] cf. the same two words in Psalm 90:11, ‘who knoweth the power of thine anger’, i.e. His might revealed in displeasure.
against all them that forsake him] as if Ezra and his companions, if they had relied on the protection of an armed escort rather than of their God, would have ‘forsaken’ Him. A common expression (cf. 1 Samuel 12:10; Isaiah 65:11; 2 Chronicles 7:22; 2 Chronicles 12:5; 2 Chronicles 13:11; 2 Chronicles 21:10; 2 Chronicles 24:20; 2 Chronicles 24:24) for religious faithlessness.”

17.) Job 33:12, “Behold, let me respond to you, you are not right in this, For God is greater than mankind.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - Behold, in this thou art not just. It would certainly not have been a just charge to make against God, that he counted Job as an enemy; and, so far as Job's statements go, it must be admitted that he had laid himself open to Elihu's rebuke. But it is no logical "answer" to Job's charge to say, in reply to it, I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. Might does not constitute right, and it is a poor way of justifying God to urge that he is all-powerful, and may do what he likes. So Cambyses was justified in his worst acts by the royal judges (Herod., 3:31); and so in an absolute monarchy it is always possible to justify the extremest acts of tyranny. Certainly God cannot act unjustly; but this is not because his doing a thing makes it right, but because his justice, is a law to his will, and he never wills to do anything that he has not previously seen to be just (see Cudworth's 'Immutable Morality,' which deserves the careful study, not alone of moralists, but also of theologians). Job 33:12

18.) Job 36:5, “Behold, God is mighty but does not reject anyone; He is mighty in strength of understanding.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, God is Mighty - This is the first consideration which Elihu urges, and the purpose seems to be to affirm that God is so great that he has no occasion to modify his treatment of any class of people from a reference to himself. He is wholly independent of all, and can therefore be impartial in his dealings. If it were otherwise; if he were dependent upon human beings for any share of his happiness, he might be tempted to show special favor to the great and to the rich; to spare the mighty who are wicked, though he cut off the poor. But he has no such inducement, as he is wholly independent; and it is to be presumed, therefore, that he treats all impartially; see the notes at Job 35:5-8.

And despiseth not any - None who are poor and humble. He does not pass them by with cold neglect because they are poor and power-less, and turn his attention to the great and mighty because he is dependent on them.

He is mighty in wisdom - Margin, "heart." The word "heart" in Hebrew is often used to denote the intellectual powers; and the idea here is, that God has perfect wisdom in the management of his affairs. He is acquainted with all the circumstances of his creatures, and passes by none from a defect of knowledge, or frown a lack of wisdom to know how to adopt his dealings to their condition.”

19.) Job 36:22, “Behold, God is exalted in His power;

Who is a teacher like Him?”

Benson Commentary

Job 36:22-23. Behold, God exalteth by his power, &c. — God is omnipotent; and therefore can either punish thee far worse, or deliver thee, if thou dost repent. He is also infinitely wise; and as none can work like him, so none can teach like him: therefore do not presume to teach him how to govern the world. None teacheth with such authority and convincing evidence, with such condescension and compassion, with such power and efficacy as God doth, he teaches by the Bible, and that is the best book; by his Son, and he is the best master. Who hath enjoined him his way? — Wherein he should walk; that is, what methods he should use in the administration of human affairs? If he had a superior, who gave him laws for his actions, he might be accountable to him for what he did; but he is supreme and uncontrollable; who hath no law to regulate him but his own holy nature and blessed will, and therefore how rash and absurd a thing is it for any man to censure his proceedings! Thou hast wrought iniquity — Thou hast swerved from the law and rule given thee.”

20.) Job 37:22, “From the north comes golden

splendor; around God is awesome majesty.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. fair weather] lit. gold, that is, probably, golden brightness or splendour, the reference being to the light (Job 37:21). This is said to come from the North because the north wind (Job 37:21) clears away the clouds and reveals it. With this sense the verse carries on the thought of Job 37:21, and the antithesis is expressed in the second clause of Job 37:22, with God is terrible glory—if men cannot look upon the light when it shines in the cloudless heaven, how much less shall they bear to look upon the majesty of God, surrounded with terrible glory.
Others adhere to the literal sense of gold, considering the general meaning to be, that men may penetrate into the furthest and darkest regions of the earth and bring out to view whatever precious things they contain, but around God is a terrible majesty which exalts Him above all comprehension. However good this meaning be in itself, it leaves Job 37:21 isolated and incomplete in sense. And although to Classical Antiquity the North may have been the region of gold, no trace of such a conception appears in the Old Testament, for any identification of Havilah (Genesis 2:11) with Colchis is more than adventurous. The comparison too of the light to gold is common in the poetry of all languages.”

21.) Psa 7:11, “God is a righteous judge,

and a God who shows indignation every day.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

God judgeth the righteous - That is, he pronounces a just judgment on their behalf; he vindicates their character. It is true, in a general sense, that God judges all according to their character; but the particular idea here is, that God will do justice to the righteous; he will interpose to vindicate them, and he will treat them as they ought to be treated when assailed by their enemies, and when reproached and calumniated. The original phrase here is susceptible of two translations; either, "God is a righteous judge" or, "God is judging," that is judges, "the righteous." The sense is not materially varied, whichever translation is adopted. Our common version has probably expressed the true idea; and there the design of the writer is to contrast the manner in which God regards and treats the righteous, with the manner in which he regards and treats the wicked. The one he judges, that is, he does him justice; with the other he is angry every day.

And God is angry with the wicked - The phrase "with the wicked" is supplied by our translators, but not improperly, since the writer evidently intends to speak of these in contrast with the righteous. The words "God is angry" must, of course, be understood in a manner in accordance with the divine nature; and we are not to suppose that precisely the same passions, or the same feelings, are referred to when this language is used of God which is implied when it is used of people. It means that his nature, his laws, his government, his feelings, are all arrayed against the wicked; that he cannot regard the conduct of the wicked with favor; that he will punish them. While his judgment in regard to the righteous must be in their favor, it must just as certainly be against the wicked; while he will vindicate the one, he will cut off and punish the other. Of the truth of this in respect to the divine character there can be no doubt. Indeed, we could not honor a God - as we could honor no other being - who would deal with the righteous and the wicked alike, or who would have no respect to character in the treatment of others, and in his feelings toward them.

Every day - Continually; constantly; always. This is designed to quality the previous expression. It is not excitement. It is not temporary passion, such as we see in men. It is not sudden emotion, soon to be succeeded by a different feeling when the passion passes off. It is the steady and uniform attribute of his unchanging nature to be always opposed to the wicked - to all forms of sin; and in him, in this respect, there will be no change. The wicked will find him no more favorable to their character and course of life tomorrow than he is today; no more beyond the grave, than this side the tomb. What he is today he will be tomorrow and every day. Time will make no change in this respect, and the wicked can have no hope on the ground that the feeling of God toward sin and the sinner (as such) will ever be in any way different from what it is at the present moment. This is a fearful truth in regard to the sinner; and both aspects of the truth here stated should make the sinner tremble;

(a) that God is angry with him - that all His character, and all the principles of His govermnent and law, are and must be arrayed against him; and

(b) that in this respect there is to be no change; that if he continues to be wicked, as he is now, he will every day and always - this side the grave and beyond - find all the attributes of God engaged against him, and pledged to punish him.

God has no attribute that can take part with sin or the sinner.”

Psa 75:7, “But God is the Judge; He puts down

one and exalts another.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But God is the judge - All depends on him, not on the natural advantages of a country; not on human strength, human skill, or human prowess. Whatever may be the natural resources of a country; whatever may be the enterprise, the numbers, or the valor of its inhabitants; whatever alliances of peace or war they may form with other nations, yet success depends on God. He presides over all; he can give success when it is least expected; and he also can humble people when they have made the most ample preparations for success, and anticipate it in the most confident manner.

He putteth down one, and setteth up another - Literal y, "This one he humbles, and this he exalts." This is true alike of an individual or a nation. The word rendered "setteth up" is the same which is used in Psalm 75:4-6, rendered "Lift up," and "promotion." The idea is, that in the matter of" lifting up," or "promotion," all depends on God. He is a sovereign, and he confers exaltation, whether of an individual or a nation, as he pleases.”

22.) Psa 45:6, “Your throne, God, is forever and ever;

The scepter of Your kingdom is a scepter of justice.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Thy throne, O God. So the LXX., the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 1:8), the Chaldee paraphrase, and, among critics, Rosenmuller, Hengstenberg, Kay, Professor Alexander, and Canon Cook. The renderings proposed by Gesenius, Ewald, and the anti-Messianic school generally are wholly untenable, as Hengstenberg has clearly shown. The psalmist's intention is to address the King, whom he has already declared to be more than man (ver. 2), as "God." Is for ever and ever. A dominion to which there will never be any end. This is never said, and could not be truly said, of any earthly kingdom. When perpetuity is promised to the throne of David (2 Samuel 7:13-16; Psalm 89:4, 36, 37), it is to that throne as continued in the reign of David's Son, Messiah. The sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre; literally, a sceptre of rectitude (comp. Psalm 67:4; Psalm 96:10). Psalm 45:6.”

23.) Psa 46:1, “For the music director. A Psalm of the sons of Korah, set to Alamoth. A Song. God is our refuge and strength, a very ready help in trouble.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1. The prayer of Isaiah 33:2, “Be thou their arm every morning, our salvation also in the time of trouble,” has been answered. In the extremity of their distress, God has proved Himself the refuge and strength of His people. He has verified the prophecies of Isaiah, who bade them trust in Him alone, and denounced the popular policy of an alliance with Egypt as “a refuge of lies.” Cp. Isaiah 28:15; Isaiah 28:17; Isaiah 30:2.
a very present help in trouble] Lit., a help in distresses hath he let himself be found exceedingly. The words are not merely a general statement, but an appeal to recent experience. For ‘let himself be found’ cp. 2 Chronicles 15:2; 2 Chronicles 15:4; 2 Chronicles 15:15; Jeremiah 29:14.

1–3. Secure under His protection God’s people have nothing to fear, even though the solid earth were convulsed, and rent asunder.”

24.) Psa 47:7, “For God is the King of all the earth;

Sing praises with a psalm of wisdom.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - For God is the King of all the earth (comp. ver. 2). Sing ye praises with understanding; literally, sing a psalm of instruction. As Hengstenberg remarks, "Every song in praise of God, on account of God, on account of his glorious deeds, contains a rich treasure of instruction and improvement." Here the special instruction is that God is King over the whole earth, that he reigns over the heathen, and that the heathen shall also some time or other own his sovereignty. Psalm 47:7.”

25.) Psa 54:4, “Behold, God is my helper;

The Lord is the sustainer of my soul.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. God is mine helper] Taught by his past experience he can say not merely that God will help him, but that God is on his side, so that the issue cannot be doubtful.
the Lord is with them that uphold my soul] R.V., is of them that uphold my soul: perhaps better, is the Upholder of my soul. The expression is an idiomatic one, and “the sense is not that God is the support of the Psalmist among many others, but that He is so in a supreme degree, that He sums up in Himself the qualities of a class, viz. the class of helpers (so Psalm 118:7). Comp. Jdg 11:35, ‘Alas, my daughter, thou hast bowed me down; even thou art my greatest troubler.’ ” (Cheyne). For uphold cp. Psalm 3:5 (sustaineth); Psalm 51:12.
4–7. A confident expectation of deliverance and vow of thanksgiving.”

26.) Psa 56:9, “Then my enemies will turn back on the day when I call; this I know, that God is for me.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

When I cry unto thee,.... In prayer;

then shall mine enemies turn back; great is the strength of prayer; the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous avails much against their enemies: when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed: the cases of Asa, Jehoshaphat, and Hezekiah, prove it; this David was assured of, and knew it to be true by experience, his prayer being often the prayer of faith in this respect;

this I:know: for God is for me; he knew that when he prayed his enemies would flee; because God was on his side, who is greater than they; or by this he knew that God was for him, and was his God, by hearing his prayers, and causing his enemies to turn back: or, however, let things go how they will, this he was assured of, that he had a covenant interest in God, and who would be his God and guide even unto death.”

Rom 8:31, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”

27.) Psa 59:17, “My strength, I will sing praises to You;

For God is my refuge, the God who shows me favor.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing - The source of strength to me; the real strength by which I have obtained deliverance is in thee. See the notes at Psalm 18:1.

For God is my defense - See the notes at Psalm 59:9.

And the God of my mercy - The God who has showed mercy to me; he from whom all these favors have sprung. Whatever means might be used to secure his own safety (compare 1 Samuel 19:12 ff) still he felt that his deliverance was to be traced wholly to God. He had interposed and had saved him; and it was proper, therefore, that praise should be ascribed to him. The experience of David in the case referred to in this psalm should be an inducement to all who are in danger to put their trust in God; his anticipated feelings of gratitude, and his purpose to praise God when he should be delivered, should awaken in us the resolution to ascribe to God all the praise when we are delivered from impending troubles, and when our lives are lengthened out where we have been in imminent danger. Whatever may have been the means of our rescue, it is to be traced to the interposition of God.”

28.) Psa 68:20, “God is to us a God of salvation; and to GOD the Lord belong ways of escape from death.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He that is our God is the God of salvation - literally, "God is for us a God of salvation." That is, The God whom we worship is the God from whom salvation comes, and who brings salvation to us. It is not a vain thing that we serve him, for he is the only being who can save us, and he will save us.

And unto God the Lord belong the issues from death - The "outgoings" or "escapes" from death. That is, He only can save from death. The Hebrew word means, properly, a going forth, a deliverance; then, a place of going forth as a gate, Ezekiel 48:30; a fountain, Proverbs 4:23. Probably the only idea intended here by the psalmist was, that safety or deliverance from death proceeds solely from God. The sentiment, however, is true in a larger sense. All that pertains to deliverance from death, all that prepares for it, all that makes it easy to be borne, all that constitutes a rescue from its pains and horrors, all that follows death in a higher and more blessed world, all that makes death "final," and places us in a condition where death is no more to be dreaded - all this belongs to God. All this is under his control. He only can enable us to bear death; he only can conduct us from a bed of death to a world where we shall never die.”

Isa 12:2, “Behold, God is my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Behold, God is my salvation - Or, God is the author, or source, of my salvation. It has not been brought about by any human hands, but is to be traced directly to him. The value of a gift is always enhanced by the dignity and excellency of the giver, and it confers an inestimable value on the blessings of salvation, that they are conferred by a being no less than the infinite God. It is not by human or angelic power; but it is to be traced directly and entirely to Yahweh.

I will trust, and not be afraid - Since God is its author; since he is able to defend me, and to perfect that which he has begun, I will confide in him, and not be afraid of the power or machinations of any enemy. In his hands I am safe. God is the foundation of our confidence; and trusting in him, his people shall never be moved.

For the Lord Jehovah - This is one of the four places in which our translators have retained the original word Yahweh, though the Hebrew word occurs often in the Scriptures. The other places where the word Jehovah is retained in our version are, Exodus 6:3; Psalm 68:18; lsa. Psalm 26:4. The original in this place is יהוה יה yâh yehovâh. The word יה yâh is an abbreviation of the word Yahweh. The abbreviated form is often used for the sake of conciseness, particularly in the Psalms, as in the expression "Hallelujah" (הללוּ־יה halelû-yâh), that is, praise Yahweh (Psalm 89:9; Psalm 94:7, Psalm 94:12; Psalm 104:35; Psalm 105:15; Psalm 106:1, Psalm 106:48; Psalm 111:1; Psalm 113:1, "et al.") In this place, and Isaiah 26:4, "the repetition" of the name seems to be used to denote "emphasis;" or perhaps to indicate that Yahweh is the same always - an unchangeable God. In two codices of Kennicott, however, the name יה yâh is omitted, and it has been conjectured by some that the repetition is an error of transcribers; but the best MSS. retain it. The Septuagint, the Chaldee, and the Syriac, however, omit it.

Is my strength and my song - The same expression occurs in the hymn that Moses composed after the passage of the Red Sea, in imitation of which this song is evidently composed; Exodus 15:2 :

Jehovah is my strength and my song,

And he is become my salvation.

The word 'strength' means, that he is the source of strength, and implies that all who are redeemed are willing to acknowledge that all their strength is n God. The word 'song' implies that he is the proper object of praise; it is to celebrate his praise that the 'song' is composed.

He also is become my salvation - This is also found in the song of Moses Exodus 15:2. It means that God had become, or was the author of salvation. It is by his hand that the deliverance bas been effected, and to him should be the praise.”

Another truth that many do not know: I will trust and not be afraid.

YOU are afraid, because you do not trust in the Lord. If you trust God, your fears will disappeare. There are many things to make you afraid in this world, we must learn to trust in God and not to be afraid.

29.) Psa 73:26, “My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 73:26. My flesh and my heart faileth — I find, by sad experience, my own weakness and inability to encounter such temptations, and bear, with becoming patience and resignation, such troubles, as I frequently meet with; yea, I find myself a frail, dying creature, that shall shortly return to the dust. Both my flesh and heart, my body and soul may, and, unless supported by God, will soon fail. But God is the strength of my heart — I have found him so; I do find him so, and hope I ever shall. As if he had said, Though I have no strength in myself, I have it in God, my never- failing refuge, to whom I will trust as long as I live. Hebrew, צור לבבי, tsur lebabi, the rock of my heart, a firm foundation, which will bear my weight, and not sink under it. In the distress supposed, he had put the case of a double failure, a failure of both the flesh and heart; but in the relief, he fixes on a single support; he leaves out the flesh, and the consideration of it; it is enough that God is the strength of his heart. He speaks as one careless of the body; let that fail, it must, there is no remedy; but he is concerned about his soul, to be strengthened in the inner man. And my portion for ever — He will not only support me while I am here, but will make me happy when I go hence, happy to all eternity. The saints choose God for their portion; he is their portion; and it is their happiness that he will be their portion for ever; a portion that will last as long as the immortal soul. Reader, consider this, and make choice of this portion without delay.”

Isa 49:5, “And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob

back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him

(For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and My God is My strength).”

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 49:5-6. And now, saith the Lord — These are the words of the Father, addressing his Son, now become incarnate for the redemption of mankind; that formed me from the womb — This refers to the human nature of Christ formed in the womb of the Virgin by the Holy Ghost; to bring Jacob again to him — To convert the wicked and apostate Israelites. Though Israel be not gathered — Be not brought to God by my ministry: or, according to the reading of the margin, that Israel may be gathered to him, and I may be glorious, &c. The word יאסŠ, be gathered, implies that the Israelites were scattered from God, and divided among themselves, as they were, in a high degree, when Christ came into the world, having, as is said Isaiah 53:6, turned every one to his own way, and therefore they needed to be gathered. It seems to be a metaphor taken from wandering sheep, which the good shepherd diligently seeks and brings home to the fold. Yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord — According to this reading, preferred by our translators, the sense is, Though Israel, God’s own, and, at present, his only people, reject me, which will be a cause of great wonder and scandal, yet God will not despise me for the unsuccessfulness of my labours among them, but will honour and glorify me, both with himself and in the face of the world, in crowning my endeavours with glorious success among other people. And my God shall be my strength — To support me under this and all other discouragements and difficulties in the discharge of my office. And he — The Lord; said, It is a light thing — A small matter in comparison of what follows; that thou shouldest raise up the tribes of Jacob — That remnant of them which shall survive all their calamities and desolations. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles — I will make thy labour effectual for the illumination, conversion, and salvation of the Gentiles in all parts of the world. This could not be said of Isaiah with any colour of truth, and therefore must be understood of Christ, by whom it was literally and fully accomplished. The words, That thou mayest be my salvation, mean, that the Messiah should be the revealer, procurer, and giver of eternal salvation to the believing Gentiles.

30.) Psa 73:28, “But as for me, the nearness of God

is good for me; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,

So that I may tell of all Your works.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. But as for me, to draw near to God is good for me:
In the Lord Jehovah have I made my refuge;
That I may speak of all thy works.
Emphatically he contrasts himself with those who ‘go far from God.’ Once he had been tempted to ask what profit there was in serving God, and openly to speak (Psalm 73:15) of his doubts: but now he can find an endless theme for praise in the dealings of God with the righteous and the wicked. The LXX reads, “that I may declare all thy praises in the gates of the daughter of Sion,” as in Psalm 9:14; and this may preserve the original reading, for the present Heb. text sounds incomplete. The P.B.V. “to speak of all thy works in the gates of the daughter of Sion” combines the LXX with the Heb.”

31.) Psa 74:12, “Yet God is my King from long ago,

Who performs acts of salvation in the midst of the earth.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 12-17. - Comfort springs from the thought of God's previous deliverances of his people, and of his other great mercies. The deliverance from Egypt has the foremost place (vers. 13,14), as the most striking. Then the deliverance from the wilderness, and the passage of Jordan (ver. 15). From these the poet passes to God's mercies in nature - day and night, light and sun, set bounds of earth and sea, alternations of the seasons - all formed and arranged by the Almighty (vers. 16, 17). Verse 12. - For God is my King of old (comp. Psalm 44:4). As "King," he has power to perform all that he wills, to set up and to cast down, to give into the enemy's hand and to deliver. Working salvation in the midst of the earth. Not in any imaginary earth centre, but, as Professor Cheyne says, "quite broadly, in various parts of the earth" (comp. Exodus 8:22). Psalm 74:12.”

32.) Psa 77:13, “Your way, God, is holy;

What god is great like our God.”

Benson Commentary

Psalm 77:13. Thy way, O God — That is, thy doings, or, the course of thy providence; the various methods and causes of thy dealings with thy people; is in the sanctuary — Is there contained and declared. As the prosperity of wicked men, so also the afflictions and troubles of God’s people, are great riddles and stumbling-blocks to the ignorant and ungodly world, but a full and satisfactory resolution of them may be had from God’s sanctuary, as is observed in the former case, Psalm 73:16-17, and here in the latter. Or, בקדשׁ, bakkodesh, may be rendered, in holiness; and so the sense is, God is holy, and just, and true in all his works; yea, even in his judgments upon his people, and in the afflictions and troubles wherewith he chastises or tries individuals of them. Who is so great a God as our God — So able to save or to destroy?”

Psa 99:9, “Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at His holy hill, for the LORD our God is holy.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Exalt the Lord our God - See the notes at Psalm 99:5.

And worship at his holy hill - In Psalm 99:5, this is, "at his footstool." The "holy hill" refers to Zion, as the seat of the national worship.

For the Lord our God is holy - See Psalm 99:5. This appropriately closes the psalm, by a distinct and solemn statement that the fact that Yahweh is a holy God is a reason for worshipping him. This is at all times the highest reason for adoration and praise.

33.) Psa 84:11, “For the LORD God is a sun and shield;

The LORD gives grace and glory; He withholds no

good thing from those who walk with integrity.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. a sun and shield] R.V., A sun and a shield. Nowhere else in the O.T. is Jehovah directly called a sun, though the ideas conveyed by the metaphor are frequent. Cp. Psalm 27:1; Isaiah 10:17; Isaiah 60:19-20; Malachi 4:2. Perhaps the prevalence of sun-worship in the East led to the avoidance of so natural and significant a metaphor. Even here the oldest Versions either had a different reading or shrank from a literal rendering. The LXX and Theodotion have: For the Lord God loveth mercy and truth. The Targ. paraphrases, For the Lord God is like a high wall and a strong shield, reading shemesh (= sun), but taking it in the sense of battlement (R.V. pinnacles) which it has in Isaiah 54:12. The Syr. gives, our sustainer and our helper. Only the later Greek Versions and Jerome render the Massoretic text literally.
the Lord &c.] Favour (Genesis 39:21), honour (Psalm 85:9; 1 Kings 3:13) and prosperity (Psalm 85:12) are the reward of the upright. Cp. the parallel in Proverbs 3:33-35, which speaks of God’s blessing on the habitation of the righteous, of His bestowal of favour on the lowly, and of the honour which is the inheritance of the wise. Grace and glory suggest to us ideas which were hardly in the Psalmist’s mind, though his words include all divine blessings, and he would not have drawn the sharp distinction between temporal and spiritual things which we are accustomed to do. But the temporal blessings of the Old Covenant are the types of the spiritual blessings of the New; and the promise, like so many sayings in the Psalter, receives a larger sense and a spiritual meaning in the light of the Gospel. See Romans 5:2; 1 Peter 5:10.
them that walk uprightly] Making sincere devotion to God and perfect integrity in their dealings with men the rule of their lives. Cp. Psalm 15:2, note; Psalm 101:2; Psalm 101:6.”

34.) Psa 115:3, “But our God is in the Heavens;

He does whatever He pleases.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But our God is in the heavens - The Septuagint adds, "and in the earth." This is not, however, in the Hebrew. The idea is, Our God really exists. He is the true God. He reigns in heaven. His plans are such as are and should be formed in heaven: lofty, vast, incomprehensible. But he is still our God; our Ruler; our Protector. He is not a god of earth - whose origin is earth - who dwells on earth alone - like the idols of the pagan; but the whole vast universe is under his control.

He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased - And, therefore, what has been done is right, and we should be submissive to it. He is a sovereign God; and mysterious as are his doings, and much as there seems to be occasion to ask the question "Where is now your God?" yet we are to feel that what has occurred has been in accordance with his eternal plans, and is to be submitted to as a part of his arrangements. It is, in fact, always a sufficient answer to the objections which are made to the government of God, as if he had forsaken his people in bringing affliction on them, and leaving them, apparently without interposition, to poverty, to persecution, and to tears, that he is "in the heavens;" that he rules there and everywhere; that he has his own eternal purposes; and that all things are ordered in accordance with his will. There must, therefore, be some good reason why events occur as they actually do.”

Ecc 5:2, “Do not be quick with your mouth or

impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in Heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - Koheleth warns against thoughtless words or hasty professions in prayer, which formed another feature of popular religion. Be not rash with thy mouth. The warning is against hasty and thoughtless words in prayer, words that go from the lips with glib facility, but come not from the heart. Thus our Lord bids those who pray not to use vain repetitions (μὴ βαττολογήσατε), as the heathen, who think to be heard for their much speaking (Matthew 6:7). Jesus himself used the same words in his prayer in the garden, and he continually urges the lesson of much and constant prayer - a lessen enforced by apostolic admonitions (see Luke 11:5, etc.; Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17); but it is quite possible to use the same words, and yet throw the whole heart into them each time that they are repeated. Whether the repetition is vain or not depends upon the spirit of the person who prays. Let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God. We should weigh well our wishes, arrange them discreetly, ponder whether they are such as we can rightly make subjects of petition, ere we lay them in words before the Lord. "Before God" may mean in the temple, the house of God, where he is specially present, as Solomon himself testified (1 Kings 8:27, 30, 43). God is in heaven. The infinite distance between God and man, illustrated by the contrast of earth and the illimitable heaven, is the ground of the admonition to reverence and thoughtfulness (comp. Psalm 115:3, 16; Isaiah 4:8, 9; 66:1). Therefore let thy words be few, as becomes one who speaks in the awful presence of God. Ben-Sirs seems to have had this passage in mind when he writes (Ecclus. 7:14), "Prate not in a multitude of elders, and repeat not (μὴ δευτερώσης) the word in prayer." We may remember the conduct of the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18:26). Ginsburg and Wright quote the Talmudic precept ('Beraehoth,' 68. a), "Let the words of a man always be few in the presence of God, according as it is written," and then follows the passage in our text. Ecclesiastes 5:2

35.) Pro 30:5, “Every word of God is pure;

He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - Every word of God is pure. "Word" is here imrah, which does not occur elsewhere in our book, which is the case also with Eloah, the term used for "God." Every declaration of God in the inspired record, the Torah, is pure, as if refined in the fire (Psalm 18:30). Vulgate, Omnis sermo Dei est ignitus; Septuagint, "All the words of God are tried in the fire (πεπυρωμένοι)." God's words are true, sincere, with no mixture of error, certain of accomplishment (comp. Psalm 12:6; Psalm 119:140). He is a shield. He is perfect protection to all those who, relying on the word of revelation, fly to him for refuge (see on Proverbs 2:7). The knowledge of God is obtained in two ways - by his revelation in his Word, and by the experience of those who trust in him. Proverbs 30:5.”

36.) Dan 5:21, “He was also driven away from

mankind, and his heart was made like that of animals, and his dwelling place was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven, until he recognized that the Most High God is ruler over the realm of mankind, and that He sets over it whomever He wishes.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And he was driven from the sons of men,.... From their company, and from conversation with them; his madness was of that kind, that he chose rather to be with beasts than men; it drove him from men, and made him more desirous of being with beasts; or it was so intolerable, that his family, friends, and courtiers, were obliged to remove him from them, from his palace and court, and from all conversation with men, which he was incapable of through his frenzy and madness:

and his heart was made like the beasts; to have the same affections and desires as they have; to crave the same things they did, and like what they liked, and live as they lived: or, "he put his heart with the beasts" (x); either Nebuchadnezzar himself chose to be with them, and delighted in a beastly life; or God did it; he put such a heart into him, or so disposed it, that it became brutish; though to read the words impersonally, as before, seems best:

and his dwelling was with the wild asses; in a wilderness or field; or rather in some enclosed place, in one of his parks, where such creatures were kept for hunting; among these he dwelt, as being like them, having lost the use of his reason, and so was become stupid and sottish as they:

and they fed him with grass like oxen; as they are fed, and which he chose above any other food:

and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; being without clothes, and lying naked in some open place all night: till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will: till he came to his senses, and was brought to see and own the sovereign dominion of the one, true, and living God, over all the kingdoms of the earth, and that they are at his dispose; Daniel 4:32.”

37.) Dan 9:14, “So the LORD has kept the disaster

in store and brought it on us; for the LORD our

God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which

He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore hath the Lord watched upon the evil - The word here used and rendered watched - שׁקד shâqad - means, properly, "to wake; to be sleepless; to watch." Then it means to watch over anything, or to be attentive to it. Jeremiah 1:12; Jeremiah 31:28; Jeremiah 44:27. - Gesenius, "Lexicon" The meaning here is, that the Lord had not been inattentive to the progress of things, nor unmindful of his threatening. He had never slumbered, but had carefully observed the course of events, and had been attentive to all that they had done, and to all that he had threatened to do. The practical "truth" taught here - and it is one of great importance to sinners - is, that God is not inattentive to their conduct, though he may seem to be, and that in due time he will show that he has kept an unslumbering eye upon them. See the notes at Isaiah 18:4.

For the Lord our God is righteous in all his works ... - This is the language of a true penitent; language which is always used by one who has right feelings when he reflects on the Divine dealings toward him. God is seen to be righteous in his law and in his dealings, and the only reason why we suffer is that we have sinned. This will be found to be true always; and whatever calamities we suffer, it should he a fixed principle with us to "ascribe righteousness to our Maker," Job 36:3.”

38.) Nah 1:2, “A jealous and avenging God is the LORD; the LORD is avenging and wrathful.

The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries,

and He reserves wrath for His enemies.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 2-6. - § 2. The prophet describes the inflexible justice of God, and illustrates his irresistible power by the control which he exercises over the material world. Verse 2. - God is jealous, and the Lord revengeth; better, Jehovah is a jealous and avenging God, as Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 4:24; Joshua 24:19. The threefold repetition of the name of Jehovah and the attribute "avenging" gives a wonderful force to this sublime description of the Divine character. God is here called jealous (ζηλωτὴς, Septuagint) anthropopothically, as ready to defend his honour against all who oppose him, as One who loves his people and punishes their oppressors. Is furious; literally, master of fury, as Genesis 37:19, "master of dreams." The Lord is full of wrath (comp. Proverbs 10:12:24; 29:22). The word used implies a permanent feeling, Hire the Greek μῆνις. He reserveth wrath. The Hebrew is simply "watching," "observing" for punishment. Septuagint, ἐξαίρων αὐτὸς τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτοῦ, "himself cutting off his enemies;" Vulgate, irascens ipse inimicis ejus. God withholds his hand for a time, but does not forget. All this description of God's attributes is intended to show that the destruction of Assyria is his doing, and that its accomplishment is certain. Nahum 1:2.”

39.) Hab 3:19, ”The Lord GOD is my strength. And He has made my feet like deer's feet, and has me walk on my high places. For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. The Lord God is my strength] lit. Jehovah, the Lord is, &c. Psalm 73:26, “God is the strength of my heart”; Psalm 18:32, “The God that girdeth me with strength.” The strength is an inward one, confidence and assurance and courageousness in the face of all external afflictions.
And he will make my feet] Or, and he maketh. The points in the comparison are perhaps swiftness and security. What is suggested is the freshness of life, the power and confidence in action, which is felt to be drawn from God.
And he will make me to walk] Or, and he maketh me.
upon mine high places] The words seem still to carry on the figure of the “hinds’ feet.” The pronoun mine does not refer to any particular high places; my high places are just those on which I walk or tread. Sept., Syr., Vulg. omit my, with no difference of meaning. The phrase “tread on my high places” expresses the freedom, the superiority to hindrance or restraint, and the power, which the community is conscious of in the strength of God. Cf. Psalm 18:33.
To the chief singer] In the titles to Psalms 4, 6 the word is rendered chief musician. It means director, or, superintendent.
on my stringed instruments] Or, with my. In the titles to Psalms 4, 6 &c. in A.V. the original word neginoth is retained. In the sing this word may mean playing on strings, in the plur it appears to mean stringed instruments. The whole expression has the meaning: To the director in the (Temple) music; or, To the director; with (Temple) music. The pronoun my occasions difficulty. On the assumption that this musical direction came from the author of the hymn it has been inferred that he was a Levite and a musician. Such an assumption would exclude the authorship of Habakkuk. But even supposing the author were some other Levite, how could a single member of the orchestra say “my stringed instruments”? The Sept. reads his, which might refer to the director, but no reliance can ever be placed on the pronouns of the Sept. All evidence, however, is against ascribing any of these musical directions to the authors of the hymns themselves. The similar passage Isaiah 38:20 should perhaps be rendered: “Therefore will we strike (play) my stringed instruments all the days of our life in the house of the Lord.” In both passages the pronoun my must either be deleted according to the usage in the titles to Psalms 4, 6 &c., or the speaker who says “my” must be supposed to be the worshipping congregation. Only a collective body could say “my stringed instruments” and “our life” (Isaiah 38:20) in the same breath.”

40.) Isa 12:2, “Behold, God is my salvation,

I will trust and not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Is my strength and my song - The same expression occurs in the hymn that Moses composed after the passage of the Red Sea, in imitation of which this song is evidently composed; Exodus 15:2 :

Jehovah is my strength and my song,

And he is become my salvation.

41.) Isa 49:5, “And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength).”

Benson Commentary

42.) Mat 3:9, “and do not assume that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father'; for I tell you that God is able, from these stones, to raise up children for Abraham.”

Benson Commentary

Matthew 3:9. And think not to say — Or, as the words, μη δοξητε λεγειν, rather signify, Presume not to say, or, Say not confidently, within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father — As if he had said, Being called upon to bring forth fruits meet for repentance, begin not to obstruct the efficacy of the admonition with those thoughts which are so common among you, that you are secure from wrath by being the children of Abraham. It is almost incredible how great the presumption of the Jews was, on this their relation to Abraham. “Abraham,” says the Talmud, (a book in high repute among them,) “sits near the gates of hell, and does not permit any wicked Israelite to go down into it.” And Justin informs us, that the Jewish rabbins assured them, “That, being Abraham’s seed, though they continued in disobedience to God, and in infidelity, the kingdom of heaven should still be given them.” And it is to be feared that many professors of Christianity build their hopes of salvation on a foundation equally false, depending on their baptism, their knowledge, their orthodoxy, their forms of godliness, their deeds of charity, or their fancied interest in the merits of Christ, while they live in sin, and are lukewarm and negligent in pursuit of that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
For I say unto you — This preface always denotes the importance of what follows: God is able of these stones — He probably pointed to those which lay before them: to raise up children to Abraham — You think that because you are the only Church of God upon earth, and if you were destroyed God would then have no seed of Abraham to show mercy to, and keep his covenant with, therefore judgment shall not come upon you: but mistake not; that God who raised Adam from the dust of the earth, and children to Abraham from the dead womb of Sarah, can, if he please, animate and sanctify these very stones, which are before your eyes, and transform them into children of Abraham; into persons who shall inherit Abraham’s faith and piety, and who, by imitating his obedience, shall become his spiritual seed, to whom the promises made to him shall be fulfilled, and in whom the church shall still subsist, though all you should be destroyed. And he would sooner work such a miracle as this, than he would suffer his promise to fail, or admit you to the blessings of his approaching kingdom, merely because you have the abused honour to descend from that peculiar favourite of Heaven. Thus the Baptist took from those presumptuous men the ground of their confidence, by affirming that God could perform his promises to Abraham, though the whole Jewish nation should be rejected by him; the seed, like the stars for multitude, that was principally intended in the promise, being a spiritual progeny.”

Luk 3:8, “Therefore produce fruits that are consistent with repentance, and do not start saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,' for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children for Abraham.”

Rom 11:23, “And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.”

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief,.... The apostle suggests that the Jews also might be recovered and brought into a Gospel church state, provided they did not continue in infidelity; but inasmuch as they seem to lie under invincible ignorance, obstinacy, and unbelief, and were such bitter enemies to the Gospel, and abhorrers of Gospel ordinances, and a Gospel church state; yea, that they must and will abide in unbelief, unless the Spirit of God convinces them of it, and it is given to them to believe in Christ, and they are powerfully drawn by the Father to come to the Son, there is no possibility or likelihood that they

shall be grafted in, or taken into a Gospel church state; to which the apostle answers, and argues for their ingrafting, and the possibility of it from the power of God:

for God is able to graft them in again; as many of them were in the times of the apostles, and some since, for nothing is impossible with God; he can remove their unbelief, knock off the shackles and fetters in which they are held, and bring, them out of the prison of infidelity, in which they are shut up; he is able to take away the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their hearts, the veil that is over them, and turn them to the Lord; he can by his mighty power work faith in them, and cause them to look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn in an evangelical manner; he can bring them to Christ, and into his churches, and among his people, and fold them with the rest of his sheep; so that there one fold of Jew and Gentile, under one shepherd, Jesus Christ.”

43.) Jhn 3:33, “The one who has accepted His testimony has certified that God is true.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He that hath received his testimony - Hath received and fully believed his doctrine. Hath yielded his heart to its influence.

Hath set to his seal - To "seal" an instrument is to make it sure; to acknowledge it as ours; to pledge our varacity that it is true and binding, as when a man seals a bond, a deed, or a will. Believing a doctrine, therefore, in the heart, is expressed by "sealing it," or by believing it we express our firm conviction that it is true, and that God who has spoken it is true. We vouch for the veracity of God, and assume as our own the proposition that it is the truth of God.

God is true - Is faithful; is the author of the system of doctrines, and will fulfill all that he has promised. We learn here:

1. that to be a true believer is something more than to hold a mere speculative belief of the truth.

2. that to be a believer is to "pledge ourselves" for the truth, to seal it as our own, to adopt it, to choose it, and solemnly assent to it, as a man does in regard to an instrument of writing that is to convey his property, or that is to dispose of it when he dies.
3. Every Christian is a witness for God, and it is his business to show by his life that he believes that God is true to his threatenings and to his promises. See the notes at Isaiah 43:10.
4. It is a solemn act to become a Christian. It is a surrender of all to God, or giving away body, soul, and spirit to him, with a belief that he is true, and alone is able to save.
5. The man that does not do this - that is not willing to pledge his belief that God is true, sets to his seal that God is a liar and unworthy of confidence, 1 John 5:10.”

44.) Jhn 4:24, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - A still more explicit and comprehensive reason is given for the previous assertion, based on the essential nature of God himself in the fulness of his eternal Being. God is Spirit (Πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός; cf. John 1:1, Θεὸς η΅ν ὁ Λόγος, - the article indicates the subject, and the predicate is here generic, and not an indefinite; therefore we do not render it, "God is a Spirit"). The most comprehensive and far-reaching metaphor or method by which Jesus endeavoured to portray the fundamental essence of the Divine Being is "Spirit," not body, not ὕλη, not κόσμος, but that deep inner verity presented in self-conscious ego; the substantia of which mind may be predicated, and all its states and faculties. The Father is Spirit, the Son is Spirit, and Spirit is the unity of the Father and the Son. St. John has recorded elsewhere that "God is Light," and "God is Love." These three Divine utterances are the sublimest ever formed to express the metaphysical, intellectual, and moral essence of the Deity. They are unfathomably deep, and quite inexhaustible in their suggestions, and yet they are not too profound for even a little child or a poor Samaritaness to grasp for practical purposes. If God be Spirit, then they who worship him, the Spirit, must by the nature of the case, must by the force of a Divine arrangement, worship him, if they worship him at all, in spirit and in truth. The truth which our Lord uttered was not unknown in the Old Testament. From Genesis to Malachi, in the Psalms, in the historical books, in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the Spirit and the spirituality of God are presupposed; but the Lord has generalized these teachings, cited them from darkness and neglect, combined them in one eternal oracle of Divine truth. The Galilaean Peasant has thus uttered the profoundest truth of ethic and religion - one which no sage in East or West had ever surpassed, and towards which the highest minds in all the ages of Christendom have been slowly making approach. Forms, postures, ceremonial, sacraments, liturgies, holy days, and places are not condemned, but they all are inefficacious if this prime condition be not present, and they can all be dispensed with if it be. Only the spirit of man can really touch or commune with the Spirit of spirits, and the history of the new dispensation is the history of a progress from forms to realities, from the sensuous to the spiritual, from the outward to the inward, from the earthly to the heavenly. John 4:24.”

45.) Jhn 13:31, “Therefore when he had left, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) Now is the Son of man glorified.—Comp. Notes on John 11:4; John 12:28. The going out of Judas is the sign that the betrayal and death of the Son of Man was at hand. In that was the glory of His accomplished work, and He speaks of this glory as present. It lies so immediately before Him that it is at once realised; and the brightness of the vision over-powers all thought of the darkness of the path which leads to it.

God is glorified in him.—This is a re-statement of the thought which has met us whenever the work of the Son has been dwelt upon. It was the Father’s work too. The glory of the Son of Man in the redemption of the world was the glory of God, who gave His only-begotten Son, that by Him the world might be saved. There is a contrast drawn here between the humanity and the divinity united in the person of our Lord. In Him, i.e., in His person, in the person of the Son of Man suffering and crucified, there were manifested the attributes of the majesty and glory of God. It was an utterance to the world, in a fulness never heard before, of the Justice, Holiness, and Love which are the nature of God.”

Jhn 13:32, “if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

32. If God be glorified in him] These words are omitted in the best MSS., and though they might easily be left out accidentally owing to the repetition, yet they spoil the balance and rhythm of the clauses.
God shall also glorify him] Better, And God shall glorify Him. This refers to the heavenly glory which He had with the Father before the world was. Hence the future tense: the glory of completing the work of redemption has already begun; that of departing to the Father as the Son of Man and returning to the Father as the Son of God will straightway follow.
in himself] i.e. in God: as God is glorified in the Messianic work of the Son, so the Son shall be glorified in the eternal blessedness of the Father. Comp. John 17:4-5; Php 2:9.—Between this verse and the next some would insert the institution of the Eucharist.

46.) Act 10:34, “Opening his mouth, Peter said:

“I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Then Peter opened his mouth - Began to speak, Matthew 5:2.

Of a truth - Truly, evidently. That is, I have evidence here that God is no respecter of persons.

Is no respecter of persons - The word used here denotes "the act of showing favor to one on account of rank, family, wealth, or partiality arising from any cause." It is explained in James 2:1-4. A judge is a respecter of persons when he favors one of the parties on account of private friendship, or because he is a man of rank, influence, or power, or because he belongs to the same political party, etc. The Jews supposed that they were especially favored by God. and that salvation was not extended to other nations, and that the fact of being a Jew entitled them to this favor. Peter here says that he had learned the error of this doctrine, and that a man is not to be accepted because he is a Jew, nor to be excluded because he is a Gentile. The barrier is broken down; the offer is made to all; God will save all on the same principle; not by external privileges or rank, but according to their character.

The same doctrine is elsewhere explicitly stated in the New Testament, Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9; Colossians 3:25. It may be observed here that this does not refer to the doctrine of divine sovereignty or election. It simply affirms that God will not save a man because he is a Jew, or because he is rich, or learned, or of elevated rank, or on account of external privileges; nor will he exclude a man because he is destitute of these privileges. But this does not affirm that he will not make a difference in their character, and then treat them according to their character, nor that he will not pardon whom he pleases. That is a different question. The interpretation of this passage should be limited strictly to the case in hand - to mean that God will not accept and save a man on account of external national rank and privileges. That he will not make a difference on other grounds is not affirmed here, nor anywhere in the Bible. Compare 1 Corinthians 4:7; Romans 12:6. It is worthy of remark further, that the most strenuous advocate for the doctrines of sovereignty and election - the apostle Paul - is also the one that labored most to establish the doctrine that God is no respecter of persons - that is, that there is no difference between the Jews and Gentiles in regard to the way of salvation; that God would not save a man because he was a Jew, nor destroy a man because he was a Gentile. Yet in regard to "the whole race viewed as lying on a level," he maintained that God has a right to exercise the prerogatives of a sovereign, and to have mercy on whom he will have mercy. The doctrine may be thus stated:

(1) The barrier between the Jews and Gentiles was broken down.

(2) all people thus were placed on a level none to be saved by external privileges, none to be lost by the lack of them.
(3) all were guilty Romans 1-3, and none had a claim on God.
(4) if any were saved, it would be by God showing mercy on such of this common mass as he chose. See Romans 3:22; Romans 10:12; Romans 2:11; Galatians 2:6; compare with Romans 9; and Ephesians 1:”

47.) Act 17:30, “So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind

that all people everywhere are to repent.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the times of this ignorance - The long period when people were ignorant of the true God, and when they worshipped stocks and stones. Paul here refers to the times preceding the gospel.

God winked at - ὑπεριδὼν huperidōn. Overlooked; connived at; did not come forth to punish. In Acts 14:16 it is expressed thus: "Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways" The sense is, he passed over those times without punishing them, as if he did not see them. For wise purposes he suffered them to walk in ignorance that there might be a fair experiment to show what people would do, and how much necessity there was for a revelation to instruct them in the true know edge of God. We are not to suppose that God regarded idolatry as innocent, or the crimes and vices to which idolatry led as of no importance; but their ignorance was a mitigating circumstance, and he suffered the nations to live without coming forth in direct judgment against them. Compare the notes on Acts 3:17; Acts 14:16.

But now commandeth - By the gospel, Luke 24:47.

All men - Not Jews only, who had been favored with special privileges, but all nations. The barrier was broken down, and the call to repentance was sent abroad into all the earth.

To repent - To exercise sorrow for their sins, and to forsake them. If God commands all people to repent, we may observe:

(1) That it is their duty to do it. There is no higher obligation than to obey the command of God.

(2) it can be done. God would not command an impossibility.
(3) it is binding on all. The rich, the learned, the great, the frivolous, are as much bound as the beggar and the slave.
(4) it must be done, or the soul lost. It is not safe to neglect a plain Law of God. It will not be well to die reflecting that we have all our life despised his commands.
(5) we should send the gospel to the pagan. God calls on the nations to repent, and to be saved. It is the duty of Christians to make known to them the command, and to invite them to the blessings of pardon and heaven.”

48.) Rom 1:17, “For in it the righteousness of God

is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written: “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS ONE WILL LIVE BY FAITH.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. the righteousness of God] A phrase occurring elsewhere seven times in this Epistle (Romans 3:5; Romans 3:21-22; Romans 3:25-26, Romans 10:3 twice), once in the Gospels (Matthew 6:33), once in 2 Cor. (Romans 5:21), once in St James (Romans 1:20), and once in 2 Pet. (Romans 1:1). As regards Pauline usage, it is plain that Romans 3 is the locus criticus for its leading meaning, which meaning we may expect to find here. Romans 3:26 appears to supply the key to this meaning: the “righteousness of God” is something which is reached, or received, “through faith in Jesus Christ;” and it is “declared” in such a way as to shew Him “just, yet justifying.” On the whole it is most consistent with most passages to explain it of the “righteousness imputed by God” to the believer. (See esp. cch. 3 and 4 for explanations of imputation.) It is “God’s righteousness,” as being provided by Him and availing with Him. (“Die Gerechtigkeit die vor Gott gilt,” “the righteousness which avails with God,” is Luther’s paraphrase.)
It is objected that the word rendered “righteousness” denotes a real moral state. But this is only partially true. It quite as much tends to denote what makes a man clear in the eye of the law, satisfactory to justice; and just such is the effect, according to this Epistle, of the Work of Christ accepted by faith. With proper caution we may thus say that “righteousness,” in this and similar phrases, is often a practical equivalent for “Justification.”—In Matthew 6:33 the reference at least may be as above; in 2 Corinthians 5:21 we have another but cognate reference, viz. to the aspect of the justified before God; in 2 Peter 1:1 and James 1:20, the meaning seems to be quite different, though equally proper to the Greek words, viz. “the will of the righteous God.” For variations in this Epistle see notes on successive passages.
revealed from faith to faith] Q. d. “is unfolded, and displays faith, and only faith, as its secret, at each disclosure.” (1) The initial step, the entrance to justification, is faith: (2) The life of the justified is maintained by faith: faith is the starting-point and the course.—“Is revealed:”—a present tense in the Gr.:—is revealing. The idea is of a perpetually recurring process: “to each fresh discoverer it is revealed.” So of the opposite “revelation,” Romans 1:18.
as it is written] The formula of quotation, sanctioned by the Saviour Himself in His own all-significant use of Scripture at the Temptation. “It is written; it is written again.” (Matthew 4:4; Matthew 4:7; Matthew 4:10.)
This is the first direct quotation in this Epistle. In the 16 chapters the O. T. is directly quoted about 60 distinct times. See Introd. iv.
The original is in Habakkuk 2:4, and is lit. rendered, “And [the] just man, by his faith shall he live.” The context there defines the meaning of faith to be trust, confidence in another, as opposed to self-confidence. Such humility of trust marks the “just” man, the man right in God’s sight; and thereby he stands possessed of “life,” i.e., peace and security before God. This brief but profound sentence is here taken by the Apostle as the text of his great statement of Justification. So again in Galatians 3:11.—“By faith:”—lit. out of faith; i.e. in consequence of it, after it, as the condition on which “life” is given.”

49.) Rom 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed

from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of people who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) As a preliminary stage to this revelation of justification and of faith, there is another, which is its opposite—a revelation and disclosure of divine wrath. The proof is seen in the present condition both of the Gentile and Jewish world. And first of the Gentile world, Romans 1:18-32.

Revealed.—The revelation of righteousness is, while the Apostle writes, being made in the Person of Christ and in the salvation offered by Him. The revelation of wrath is to be inferred from the actual condition—the degradation doubly degraded—in which sin leaves its votaries.

From heaven.—The wrath of God is revealed “from heaven,” inasmuch as the state of things in which it is exhibited is the divinely-inflicted penalty for previous guilt. Against that guilt, shown in outrage against all religion and all morality, it is directed.

Ungodliness and unrighteousness.—These two words stand respectively for offences against religion and offences against morality.

Who hold the truth in unrighteousness.—Rather, who suppress and thwart the truth—the light of conscience that is in them—by unrighteousness. Conscience tells them what is right, but the will, actuated by wicked motives, prevents them from obeying its dictates. “The truth” is their knowledge of right, from whatever source derived, which finds expression in conscience. “Hold” is the word which we find translated “hinder” in 2Thessalonians 2:6-7—having the force of to hold down, or suppress.”

50.) Rom 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. For] The “for” refers to the last statement. The verse may be paraphrased, “For whereas the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is, as we have now said, eternal life.”
wages] The Gr. is same word as Luke 3:14; 1 Corinthians 9:7; 2 Corinthians 11:8. It strictly denotes pay for military service; and the metaphor here therefore points not to slavery so much as to the warfare of Romans 6:13 (where see note on weapons). The word is full of pregnant truth. Death, in its most awful sense, is no more than the reward and result of sin; and sin is nothing less than a conflict against God.
gift] The Gr. is same word as free gift, ch. Romans 5:15.—This word here is, so to speak, a paradox. We should have expected one which would have represented life eternal as the issue of holiness, to balance the truth that death is the issue of sin. And in respect of holiness being the necessary preliminary to the future bliss, this would have been entirely true. But St Paul here all the more forcibly presses the thought that salvation is a gift wholly apart from human merit. The eternal Design, the meritorious Sacrifice, the life-giving and love-imparting Spirit, all alike are a Gift absolutely free. The works of sin are the procuring cause of Death; the course of sanctification is not the procuring cause of Life Eternal, but only the training for the enjoyment of what is essentially a Divine gift “in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
through] Lit., and better, in. The “life eternal” is to be found only “in Him,” by those who “come to Him.” His work is the one meritorious cause; and in His hands also is the actual gift. (John 17:2-3).”

51.) Rom 8:33, Who will bring charges against God's

elect? God is the one who justifies.”

Benson Commentary

Romans 8:33-34. Who shall lay any thing to the charge — Any matter of guilt, which should bring them into condemnation, or shall bring an accusation against God’s elect — That is, against true believers, who have so received Christ (John 1:12) as to have obtained the privilege of becoming God’s children, and who only have the title of God’s elect in the New Testament, God having chosen such, and only such, for his people, instead of the disobedient Jews, whom he rejected for their unbelief. See note on Romans 8:28-30. To explain this a little further, in the words of a writer, quoted here by Mr. Wesley: — “Long before the coming of Christ, the heathen world revolted from the true God, and were therefore reprobated, or rejected. But the nation of the Jews were chosen to be the people of God, and were therefore styled, the children, or sons, of God, a holy people, a chosen seed, the elect, the called of God. And these titles were given to all the nation of Israel, including both good and bad. Now the gospel, having the most strict connection with the books of the Old Testament, where these phrases frequently occur; and our Lord and his apostles being native Jews, and beginning to preach in the land of Israel, the language in which they preached would, of course, abound with the phrases of the Jewish nation. And hence it is easy to see, why such of them as would not receive him were styled reprobated. For they no longer continued to be the people of God: whereas this, and those other honourable titles, were continued to all such Jews as embraced Christianity. And the same appellations which once belonged to the Jewish nation, were now given to the Gentile Christians also, together with which they were invested with all the privileges of the chosen people of God; and nothing could cut them off from these, but their own wilful apostacy. It does not appear that even good men were ever termed God’s elect, till above two thousand years from the creation. God’s electing, or choosing, the nation of Israel, and separating them from the other nations, who were sunk in idolatry and all wickedness, gave the first occasion to this sort of language. And as the separating the Christians from the Jews was a like event, no wonder it was expressed in like words and phrases: only with this difference, the term elect was of old applied to all the members of the visible church, whereas, in the New Testament, it is applied only to the members of the invisible,” to truly spiritual Christians, possessed of the faith working by love. It is God that justifieth — Acquits them from condemnation, and accounts them righteous; and his power and authority are supreme over all creatures: he can and will answer all objections against them, and pronounce them absolved now, and at the day of final judgment. To justify, here, being opposed to laying a charge, or bringing an accusation, against God’s people, must be understood in the forensic sense; for a judicial acquittal from that of which the justified persons were accused, and from all the consequences which would have followed if they had not been acquitted. Who is he that condemneth? — What is his authority or power; he can but be a creature; and surely no creature, man or angel, can frustrate the Creator’s sentence. On what ground can any one accuse or condemn them? Is it on that of their past guilt, or their present remaining depravity? It is Christ that died — Namely, to expiate the former, and to procure for them grace to mortify and destroy the latter. Yea rather, that is risen again — For their justification, now and at the day of judgment; who is even at the right hand of God — Exalted to the highest degree of honour and power, even to the government of the universe; and that for this very end, to protect them against their enemies, deliver them from the guilt and power of their sins, and confer upon them his regenerating, sanctifying Spirit. The apostle seems here to allude to Psalm 110:1, where the empire of the Messiah, after his resurrection, is foretold. Christ, who died to save God’s people, and who, since his resurrection, governs the world for their benefit, will neither condemn them himself, when he sitteth in judgment upon them, nor suffer any other to condemn them. Who also maketh intercession for us — By presenting to his Father his obedience and sufferings, whereby, as our surety, he hath made satisfaction for our sins, and by manifesting his desire and will, in his prayers offered for us, that we should be made partakers of all the blessings procured by his sacrifice, and by presenting our prayers sanctified, and rendered acceptable through him. Dr. Doddridge, following Augustine, reads and interprets these clauses interrogatively, thus: Who shall lodge any accusation, &c. Is it God? What! he who himself justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? Is it Christ, whom we know to be appointed as the final Judge? What! doth he condemn, who died to expiate our guilt, and rescue us from condemnation? Yea rather, who is risen again? Shall he undo the purposes of his death and resurrection? He who is now at the right hand of God, where he appears under a quite contrary character, and is also making intercession for us; and therefore, far from accusing us, appears ready to answer all accusations brought against us, and to frustrate all the designs of our enemies? But, as Macknight observes, the common translation, at least of the first clause, is better, as it avoids the impropriety of representing God as an accuser at the tribunal of his Son. Besides, it is fully as emphatical as the other. God having declared his purpose of justifying his believing and obedient people through faith, will any one, after that, presume to bring any accusation against them?”

52.) Rom 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfec.”

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) Be not conformed . . . but be ye transformed.—Here the English is somewhat misleading. It would naturally lead us to expect a similar play upon words in the Greek. But it is not so; indeed, there is a clear distinction between the two different words employed. It is the difference between an outward conformity or disguise and a thorough inward assimilation. The Christian is not to copy the fleeting fashions of the present time, but to be wholly transfigured in view of that higher mode of existence, in strict accordance with God’s will, that he has chosen.

This world.—Not here the same word as that which is used, e.g., in 1John 2:15-17, but another, which signifies rather the state of the world as it existed at the Coming of Christ, as opposed to the newly-inaugurated Messianic reign. “To be conformed to this world” is to act as other men do, heathen who know not God; in opposition to this the Apostle exhorts his readers to undergo that total change which will bring them more into accordance with the will of God.

By the renewing of your mind.—“The mind” (i.e., the mental faculties, reason, or understanding) is in itself neutral. When informed by an evil principle, it becomes an instrument of evil; when informed by the Spirit, it is an instrument of good. It performs the process of discrimination between good and evil, and so supplies the data to conscience. “The mind” here is not strictly identical with what we now mean by “conscience;” it is, as it were, the rational part of conscience, to which the moral quality needs to be superadded. The “renewed mind,” or the mind acting under the influence of the Spirit, comes very near to “conscience” in the sense in which the word is used by Bishop Butler.

Prove.—As elsewhere, “discriminate, and so approve.” The double process is included: first, of deciding what the will of God is; and, secondly, of choosing and acting upon it.

What is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.—The “will of God” is here, not the divine attribute of will, but the thing willed by God, the right course of action. Are we to take the adjectives “good, and acceptable, and perfect” (with the Authorised version), as in agreement with this phrase, or are they rather in apposition to it, “that we may prove the will of God, that which is good, and acceptable, and perfect”? Most of the commentators prefer this latter way of taking the passage, but it is not quite clear that the former is impossible, “that good, and acceptable, and perfect thing, or course of action which God wills.” “Acceptable,” that is to say, to God Himself.

53.) Rom 14:17, “for the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(17) Meat and drink.—Strictly, eating and drinking.

Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.—By “righteousness and peace” is not here meant imputed righteousness, or justification and reconciliation with God, but rather the moral condition of righteousness in the Christian himself, and concord with his fellow-men. These are crowned in the confirmed Christian by that feeling of subdued and chastened exultation which is wrought in Him by the presence in his heart or constant influence of the Holy Spirit.

It is remarkable how, with all the wide difference in terminology between the writings of St. Paul and the Gospels, they yet come round to the very same point. The “kingdom of God,” as here described, is exactly what we should gather from the fuller and more detailed sayings of our Lord. “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man;” “The kingdom of God is within you;” “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation;” “If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light;” “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness;” “Blessed are the peacemakers;” “Rejoice and be exceeding glad.”

It has not been beyond the power of heathen or even Christian philosophers, such, e.g., as Marcus Aurelius, to arrive at the conception of righteousness and peaceableness as duties to be observed and striven after. The peculiarity of Christianity consists in the unity which it gives to these attributes as naturally flowing from a spring of deep religious emotion, and from the finish and perfection which it adds to them by the introduction of that third term, “joy in the Holy Ghost.” Many individuals have shown, and still show, with greater or less approximation, what the Christian type should be, but the great and only perfect Exemplar is Jesus Himself, and that less, perhaps, in the later portion of His career, when He was fulfilling that other side of His mission, to “bear the sins of many” as the Saviour of mankind, than in the earlier untroubled phase which finds expression in the Sermon on the Mount. This is in closest contact with the normal life of men.”

54.) 1Co 1:9, “God is faithful, through Whom you were called into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. God is faithful] It will not be God’s fault, but our own, if the promises of the last verse are not realized.
the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ] The important word here rendered fellowship has unfortunately different renderings in our version. Sometimes, as in ch. 1 Corinthians 10:16 (where see note), it is rendered communion; and in 2 Corinthians 6:14, where it is thus rendered, another word is rendered fellowship. In 2 Corinthians 9:13, it is rendered distribution. Its usual signification would appear to be the sharing together, joint participation as common possessors of any thing. But it is impossible to go so far as Cremer in his Lexicon of the N. T. and assert that it never has the active sense of communication, in the face of such passages as Romans 15:26 (where it is rendered distribution); 2 Corinthians 9:13. Here it refers to the life which by means of faith is common to the believer and his Lord. Cf. Galatians 2:20.”

55.) 1Co 1:25, “For the foolishness of God is wiser

than mankind, and the weakness of God is

stronger than mankind.”

God does not have foolishness and God does not have weakness.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Because the foolishness of God - That which God appoints, requires, commands, does, etc., which appears to people to be foolish. The passage is not to be understood as affirming that it is really foolish or unwise; but that it appears so to people - Perhaps the apostle here refers to those parts of the divine administration where the wisdom of the plan is not seen; or where the reason of what God does is concealed.

Is wiser than men - Is better adapted to accomplish important ends, and more certainly effectual than the schemes of human wisdom. This is especially true of the plan of salvation - a plan apparently foolish to the mass of people - yet indubitably accomplishing more for the renewing of people, and for their purity and happiness, than all the schemes of human contrivance. They have accomplished nothing toward people's salvation; this accomplishes everything. They have always failed; this never fails.

The weakness of God - There is really no weakness in God, any more than there is folly. This must mean, therefore, the things of his appointment which appear weak and insufficient to accomplish the end. Such are these facts - that God should seek to save the world by Jesus of Nazareth, Who was supposed unable to save himself Matthew 27:40-43; and that he should expect to save people by the gospel, by its being preached by people who were without learning, eloquence, wealth, fame, or power. The instruments were feeble; and people judged that this was owing to the weakness or lack of power in the God who appointed them.

Is stronger than men - Is able to accomplish more than the utmost might of man. The feeblest agency that God puts forth - so feeble as to be esteemed weakness - is able to effect more than the utmost might of man. The apostle here refers particularly to the work of redemption; but it is true everywhere. We may remark:

(1) That God often effects his mightiest plans by that which seems to men to be weak and even foolish. The most mighty revolutions arise often from the slightest causes; his most vast operations are often connected with very feeble means. The revolution of empires; the mighty effects of the pestilence; the advancement in the sciences, and arts, and the operations of nature, are often brought about by means apparently as little suited to accomplish the work as those which are employed in the plan of redemption.

(2) God is great. If his feeblest powers put forth, surpass the mightiest powers of man, how great must be his might. If the powers of man who rears works of art; who levels mountains and elevates vales; if the power which reared the pyramids, be as nothing when compared with the feeblest putting forth of divine power, how mighty must be his arm! How vast that strength which made, and which upholds the rolling worlds! How safe are his people in his hand! And how easy for him to crush all his foes in death!”

56.) 1Co 3:17,“If anyone destroys the temple of

God, God will destroy that person; for the

temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.”

Matthew Poole's Commentary

If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; the word which we translate defile and destroy (for the Greek word is the same for both) signifieth to violate, corrupt, or destroy. Our translators generally render it corrupt, 1 Corinthians 15:33 2 Corinthians 7:2 1 Corinthians 11:3 Ephesians 4:22 Judges 1:10 Revelation 19:2. The people of God, who are here called the temple of God, are defiled, either by imbibing false doctrine, or being tempted to any looseness of life and conversation. Now, (saith the apostle), if any one goes about to do this, which all preachers do who teach any false doctrine, or any principles that lead to a liberty for the flesh, or lead to an ill and scandalous life, God shall destroy those men.
For the temple of God is holy; for as the temple of God of old was a place built and set apart for holy uses, and therefore not without great peril to be abused and profaned; so those that are the people of God, are by God called and set apart in a more immediate, eminent manner for the honour and glory of God, and therefore cannot be debauched or defiled by any as instruments in that action, without exceeding great peril and hazard to them that endeavour and attempt any such thing.”

57.) 1Co 4:20, “For the Kingdom of God is not in words, but in power.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For the kingdom of God - The reign of God in the church (see the note at Matthew 3:2); meaning here, probably, the power or authority which was to be exercised in the government and discipline of the church. Or it may refer to the manner in which the church had been established. "It has not been set up by empty boasting; by pompous pretensions; by confident assertions. Such empty boasts would do little in the great work of founding, governing, and preserving the church and unless people have some higher powers than this they are not qualified to be religious teachers and guides."

But in power -

(1) In the miraculous power by which the church was established - the power of the Saviour and of the apostles in working miracles.

(2) in the power of the Holy Spirit in the gift of tongues, and in his influence on the heart in converting people; see the note at 1 Corinthians 1:18.
(3) in the continual power which is needful to protect, defend, and govern the church. Unless teachers showed that they had such power, they were not qualified for their office.”

58.) 1Co 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except something common to mankind; and God

is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted

beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - But such as is common to man; rather, except such as is human; i.e. such as man can bear. The last verse was a warning; this is an encouragement. Having just heard what efforts even St. Paul had to make to run in the Christian race, and how terribly their fathers in the wilderness had failed to meet the requirements of God, they might be inclined to throw up every effort in despair. St. Paul, therefore, reminds them that these temptations were not superhuman, but were such as men had resisted, and such as they could resist. God is faithful He had called them (1 Corinthians 1:9), and since he knew "how to deliver the godly out of temptations" (2 Peter 2:9), he would surely perform his side of the covenant, and, if they did their parts, would stablish and keep them from evil (2 Thessalonians 3:3). Also. The mode of deliverance shall be ready simultaneously with the temptation. Away to escape; rather, the way to escape. The way to escape is different in different temptations, but for each temptation God would provide the special means of escaping it. 1 Corinthians 10:13.”

59.) 1Co 11:3, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. But I would have you know] According to St Paul’s invariable rule, the question is argued and settled upon the first principles of the Christian Revelation. In the sight of God all men are equal; yet without distinctions of rank and office society could not exist. But equality and order are reconciled by the revelation of God in Christ.
the head] “In the idea of this word dominion is especially expressed. As in the human organisation the exercise of dominion over all the members proceeds from the head; so in the family, from man; in the Church, from Christ; in the universe, from God.”—Olshausen.
of every man is Christ] See Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 4:15; Colossians 1:18; Colossians 2:19. As the head directs the body, so ought every member of Christ’s Body to be governed and directed by Christ.
the head of the woman is the man] Cf. Ephesians 5:23. “It appears that the Christian women at Corinth claimed for themselves equality with the male sex, to which the doctrine of Christian freedom and the removal of the distinction of sex in Christ (Galatians 3:28) gave occasion. Christianity had indisputably done much for the emancipation of women, who in the East and among the Ionic Greeks (it was otherwise among the Dorians and the Romans) were in a position of unworthy dependence. But this was done in a quiet, not an over-hasty manner. In Corinth, on the contrary, they had apparently taken up the matter in a fashion somewhat too animated. The women overstepped due bounds by coming forward to pray and prophesy in the assemblies with uncovered head.”—De Wette. Such persons are here reminded that according to God’s word (Genesis 3:16; 1 Timothy 2:11; 1 Timothy 2:13) woman was designed to be in subjection, both in society and in the family. Of this last, woman’s chief sphere, man was, by God’s ordinance, the head. Yet (see below, 1 Corinthians 11:5) she is on an equality with man in her individual relation to Christ.
the head of Christ is God] Cf. ch. 1 Corinthians 3:23, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Corinthians 15:28, and notes. Also St John 14:28. Possibly this may be added to prevent the idea from gaining currency that the interval between man and woman was in any degree comparable to that between Christ and man. And it also implies that the whole universe is one vast system of orderly gradation, from God its Creator downwards.”

60.) 1Co 14:33, “for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

33. for God is not the author of confusion, but of peace] Confusion; literally, unsettlement. Cf. St James 3:16. Also St Luke 21:9, where the word is rendered commotion. As in the natural, so in the moral and spiritual world, God is a God of order. The forces of nature operate by laws which are implicitly obeyed. If it be otherwise in the moral and spiritual world, God is not the author of the confusion, but man, who has opposed himself to His Will.
as in all churches of the saints] It is a question whether these words belong to what goes before or what follows. If to what goes before, it would seem as though a hint was intended that these disorders were peculiar to the Corinthian Church. If to what follows, it is a repetition of the argument in ch. 1 Corinthians 7:17, 1 Corinthians 11:16, and it would then appear that the Apostle had especial reason to fear insubordination on the question of the position of woman in the Christian assembly, and that he therefore fortifies his own authority by an appeal to the universal custom of the Church of Christ.”

61.) 2Co 1:18, “But as God is faithful, our word to you is not yes and no.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - But as God is true; rather, but God is faithful, whatever man may be (1 Corinthians 1:9; 1 Corinthians 10:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 3:3; 1 John 1:9). Our word towards you, etc. The verse should be rendered, But God is faithful, because (faithful herein, that) our preaching to you proved itself to be not yea and may. Whatever you may say of my plans and my conduct, there was one thing which involved an indubitable "yea," namely, my preaching to you. In that, at any rate, there was nothing capricious, nothing variable, nothing vacillating. St. Paul, in a manner characteristic to his moods of deepest emotion, "goes off at a word." The Corinthians talked of his "yea" and "nay" as though one was little better than the other, and neither could be depended on; well, at any rate, one thing, and that the most essential, was as sure as the faithfulness of God. 2 Corinthians 1:18.”

62.) 2Co 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that, always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. all grace] See notes on grace elsewhere, esp. ch. 2 Corinthians 8:6 and 2 Corinthians 9:15 of this chapter; also cf. 1 Corinthians 16:3. The meaning here is ‘God is able to make every gift of His loving-kindness to abound to you, that you, being thus enriched, may impart of His bounty to others.’
sufficiency] This is translated contentment in 1 Timothy 6:6, while the corresponding adjective is rendered content in Php 4:11. But 1 Timothy 6:8 explains the meaning of the word. It is the state of mind which, needing nothing but the barest necessaries, regards all other things as superfluities, to be parted with whenever the needs of others require them. This is the force of the words ‘all’ twice repeated, and ‘always.’ At all times, save when he is actually deprived of food and raiment, the Christian ought to regard himself as having enough. It is worthy of remark that this self-sufficingness was a favourite virtue with heathen philosophers, though destitute, in the case of the Stoics, of all the gentler and more attractive aspects in which it has been wont to present itself among Christians. The use of this word, as of the word noticed in 2 Corinthians 9:7, seems to shew that St Paul was well acquainted with the philosophy of Aristotle. See also note on ch. 2 Corinthians 8:14.”

63.) Gal 3:20, “Now a mediator is not for one party only; but God is only one.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. Probably no verse of Scripture has more exercised the ingenuity of commentators. Certainly of none other can it be said that it ‘has received 430 interpretations’ (Jowett), if by that expression contrariant or different interpretations are meant. Some notice of these is reserved for an Appendix (Appendix v. p. 89). The verse may be paraphrased as follows: Now the very fact that at the giving of the Law a Mediator was needed, marks the nature of the transaction as a compact entered into between two parties. The very term Mediator implies two parties between whom he intervenes. But the God of the promise is One and One only. He reveals Himself as the bestower of a free gift to the world. ‘The Giver is everything, the recipient nothing’ (Lightfoot). Hence there was no place in the Gospel revelation for a mediator in the sense in which Moses was mediator between God and the people of Israel. It may be observed that this view of the scope of the passage (which is all that is necessary to its connexion with the preceding and following context) does not militate against, nor is it inconsistent with, the declaration that there is ‘One Mediator between God and man’, (1 Timothy 2:5). The young student of theology needs to be cautioned against the too common mistake of treating a verse of Scripture as if it were an isolated proposition, instead of regarding it in its relation to the train of thought to the expression of which it contributes.
On Chapter Galatians 3:20Of the many explanations which have been given of this passage a few of the most important may be noticed. They may be classified in three divisions, according to the supposed reference in the term Mediator:—
1. The earlier expositors understood the term Mediator in the passage before us to refer to Christ. In favour of this view it may of course be urged that in all other passages of the N. T. (see note on Galatians 3:19) where the word occurs it refers to our Lord Jesus Christ. But it no more follows that the word thus applied to our Lord so loses its primary meaning as to be appropriated exclusively to Him, than that the words ‘shepherd’ and ‘bishop’ must necessarily refer to Him in every passage where they occur, because He is ‘the Shepherd and Bishop’ of our souls. Even if the reference to Christ could be established as a simple and natural explanation of the passage, taken by itself, the connexion with the context is obscured or lost, and the force of the Apostle’s argument impaired thereby.
2. More probable is the opinion that in Galatians 3:20, as in Galatians 3:19, the Mediator is Moses. (The definite article in the Greek may lend equal support to this and to the next explanation.) This opinion, entertained by eminent commentators, both ancient and modern, is in full accord with the scope of the passage. But the reference, though suggested by, is not therefore limited to the giving of the Law. ‘The mediator,’ just spoken of (Galatians 3:19), is undoubtedly Moses, but what was true of him in that capacity is also true of every other human mediator.
3. Lastly, we may regard the first portion of the verse as laying down a general proposition. Those who hold this view adopt the rendering of the English Bible, both A.V. and R.V. alike, as correct, and understand it to express ‘the idea, the specific type,’ and to state a characteristic of the Mediator, as such. The very idea of mediation implies a transaction involving the existence of at least two parties, and mutual conditions. But the Gospel is a promise, the gift of grace. God alone is its author, and its fulfilment depends on His faithfulness—on Himself alone.
Under each of these general divisions (especially the last) a great many explanations, differing in some particulars, are found. Many of these, so far from being destructive of one another, are not inconsistent or irreconcilable with one another. The slighter differences help to illustrate and confirm the great truth which St Paul is enforcing, rather than to obscure his meaning or render it uncertain. A more detailed account of these, with the names of their principal authors, may be found in Dr Schaffe’s Commentary, Excursus, p. 38, who gives the following extract from Reuss’s French Commentary, which clearly expresses one, and perhaps the best-supported, view of the passage under consideration: “A mediator implies two contracting parties, consequently two wills, which may be united, but may also disagree; a law therefore given by mediation is conditional and imperfect: but the promise, emanating from God alone, and having His will for its sole source and guarantee, is infinitely more sure and more elevated. The law, then, cannot set aside the promise, its aim can only be secondary.”

64.) Gal 6:7, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a person sows, this he will also reap.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - Be not deceived (μὴ πλανᾶσθε). So 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:33. Let nothing lead you astray from the conviction, that in the conformity of your real aims and actual practice with the dictates of God's Spirit, and in that alone, can you hope for eternal life. God is not mocked (Qeo\ ou) mukthri/zetai); God is not derided. The verb μυκτηρίζειν, to writhe the nostrils (μυκτῆρας) at one in scorn, to sneer at him, occurs frequently in the Septuagint, rendering different Hebrew words, which denote disdain; as naatz ("despise"), Proverbs 1:30; bazah ("despise"), Proverbs 15:20; la'ag, "laugh (in derision)," Psalm 80:6. St. Luke uses it in his Gospel twice (Luke 16:14; Luke 23:35), where it is rendered "deride," "scoff at." It is, in effect, a "derision" of God when we meet his requirements of real piety and of practical obedience by the presentation of lip-professions and outward shows of religiousness. But the derision will not last long; it cannot hold good, Whatever in our hypocrisy we may pretend, or even after a fashion believe, as to ourselves, the eternal principles of Divine government are sure to work out their accomplishment. Bishop Lightfoot, founding upon the use of the verb μυκτηρίζειν in Greek authors on rhetoric - with whom it denotes a kind of fine irony, in which a feeling of contempt is thinly veiled by a polite show of respect - proposes to apply this sense here; and it would well suit the tenor of the passage; but as employed by so Hellenistic a writer as St. Paul it appears safer to interpret the verb simply In the light thrown upon it by the usage of the Septuagint. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap (ο{ γὰρ ἐὰν σπείρῃ ἄνθρωπος τοῦτο καὶ θερίσει). The word σπείρῃ may be either an aorist, as in Ephesians 6:8," whatsoever good thing each one doeth (ποιήσῃ);" or a present. The latter seems to agree better with the ὁ σπείρω of the next verse, and the more pointedly directs attention to one's present immediate behaviour. The reaping-time is either the future life or its starting-point in the" day of the Lord" which determines its future complexion, as in Romans 2:5-16; 2 Corinthians 5:10. The axiom here stated holds good, no doubt, in much that befalls us in the present life, as is forcibly evinced by the late Fred. Robertson's sermon on this text; but this application of it hardly lies in the apostle's present field of view. All human activity is here recited under this image of "sowing," with reference to the consequences which in the day of retribution will infallibly accrue from every part of it. In 2 Corinthians 9:6, however ("He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly," etc.), the idea is applied to pecuniary gifts. Such an application seems to possess a peculiar propriety, founded on the benefits that the giving of money - which, viewed as gold, silver, or copper coins is in itself a dry and useless thing - would be the means of effecting (see vers. 12-15 of the same chapter). But this does not warrant our limiting the application of the word here to the bestowment of money gifts, though this in the context furnishes the occasion for its introduction; the next verse proves the wider application which the apostle's mind is making of it, not, however, losing sight (vers. 9, 10) of this specific reference. "Whatsoever he is sowing, that shall he reap;" the quality of the harvest (its quantity does not seem from the next verse to be particularly thought of, as in 2 Corinthians 9:6) is determined by the quality of the seed sown. In the form of expression, the deed which is done is said to be itself received back - received back, that is, in its corresponding reward or punishment. In a similar manner the apostle expresses himself in Ephesians 6:8, "Whatsoever good thing each man doeth, this shall he receive again (κομιεῖται) from the Lord." So of evil doings in Colossians 3:25, "He that doeth wrong shall receive again the wrong which he did;" and of both good and bad in 2 Corinthians 5:10. These last-cited passages, together with others which will readily occur to the reader, appear to contemplate a reference to be made in the day of judgment to each several action, with an award assigned to each; which view is likewise presented by such utterances of Christ himself as we read in Matthew 10:42; Matthew 25:35, 36, 42, 43. On the other hand, in the passage now before us, the "eternal life," and probably also the "corruption" mentioned in ver. 8, seem to point to the general award, of life or of destruction, which each man shall receive, founded on the review of his whole behaviour (see Revelation 20:12, 15). This is a somewhat different view of the future retribution from the former. Considering such passages in the light of moral exhortation, we are reminded that in each several action we are taking a step towards either a happy or a disastrous end - a step which, if pursued onward in the same direction, will infallibly conduct us to either that happy or that disastrous end. In regard to the relation between the two somewhat differing views of the future retribution above stated, when considered as subjects of speculative inquiry, a few observations may not be out of place here. We need find no difficulty at all in this diversity of representation so far as relates to the good actions of those who shall then be accepted or to the evil actions of those who shall be rejected. But a difficulty does seem to present itself with respect to the evil deeds done, if not before yet after their conversion, by the ultimately accepted, and also with respect to the good deeds done by the ultimately lost. Will the righteous receive the award of their evil deeds? Will the lost receive the award of their good deeds? For there is no righteous man who hath not sinned; as also neither is there an unrighteous man whose life does not show good and laudable actions. A reference to the actual experience of souls in this life suggests, not indeed a complete solution of the difficulty which the nature of the case probably makes impossible to us at devise, but a consideration which helps to lessen our sense of it. It is this . in Christians who have a well-grounded consciousness of perfect reconciliation with God, assured to them even by the seal of the Spirit of adoption, this happy consciousness is, however, perfectly compatible with a vivid remembrance of wrong things done in the past. And this remembrance is perpetually suggestive of sentiments of self-loathing - self-loathing the more bitter in proportion as the soul, by its growing purification through the Spirit, is enabled the more truly to estimate the evil character of those evil deeds. This is exemplified by St. Paul's wailing recollection, near the very end of his course, of those heinous sins of his, committed long years before, against Christ and his Church (1 Timothy 1:15). Now, we cannot conceive of a continuous existence of the soul apart from a continued remembrance of its past experiences. The redeemed, then, in their perfected state after the resurrection, can never become oblivions of those foul blots in their spiritual history; the recollection of them can never cease at once to abase them in their own consciousness and to glorify the grace which has redeemed them. The Divine Spirit itself will still, we may believe, quicken these remembrances; and the infinite benefactions of God, in that state of felicity experienced, will be still heaping fresh coals of fire upon their heads. Their felicity will be no offspring of blindness or misconception in reference to the past; on the contrary, they will know the truth in respect to their own lives in respect to every part of them, with a clearness unattainable in the present state; but they will know the truth too in respect to the intensity of the Divine love. God's love, it is true, cannot shed the light of approval upon those dark spots of their earthly history; cannot shed upon them those felicitating beams of "Well done, good and faithful servant," which will most assuredly flow down upon the acceptable portions of their conduct; that love itself cannot deal with his servants otherwise than according to truth. But the love of God will be clearly seen, cancelling, for Christ's sake, the penal consequences which but for Christ those several wickednesses would have incurred: in those very instances of sinfulness magnifying in each saved one's consciousness the infinite benignity of his Father, which loved him even then, in those very hours of his extremest ill-deserving. If these speculations appear not unreasonable, then they will serve to explain in what way the sinful doings even of those finally accepted will, however, not fail of receiving their award; the award will be there, both in that sense of loss - loss of Divine commendation, which will necessarily accompany the recollection of them; and also in the sense of their debt of punishment, though cancelled. Be we sure our sin will find us out. Galatians 6:7.”

65.) Col 3:6, “For it is because of these things that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - Because of which (things) the anger of God cometh [upon the sons of disobedience] (Ephesians 2:2, 3; Ephesians 5:6; Galatians 5:21; Romans 1:18; Romans 2:5-9; Romans 5:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Thessalonians 2:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10; John 3:36; Revelation 6:17; Malachi 3:2). The latter phrase is cancelled by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford, Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort; but retained by Ellicott and, preferentially, by the Revisers. The witnesses against it, though numerically few, are varied and select, and the parallel (Ephesians 5:6) would suggest insertion of the words if originally absent. "The anger of God is coming" is a sentence complete in itself (setup. Romans 1:18). God's "anger" (ὀργή) is his settled punitive indignation against sin, of which his "wrath" (θυμός) is the terrible outflaming (Revelation 16:1; Revelation 14:10); see Trench's 'Synonyms.' "Cometh" implies a continuing fact or fixed principle (see Winer, p. 332); or rather, perhaps, signifies that this "anger" is in course of manifestation, is "on the way:" comp. 1 Thessalonians 1:10, "the anger that is coming," not "to come," also the use of ἔρχομαι in John 14:3, 18; Hebrews 10:37. The objects of this anger ("children of wrath," Ephesians 2:2, 3) are "the sons of disobedience." The expressive Hebraism by which a man is said to be s child or son of the dominant quality or influence of his life is frequent in the New Testament. Colossians 3:6.”

66.) 1Ti 4:4, “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. every creature of God is good] Creation in all its parts is meant, everything made by God; for this use of the word ‘creature’ from Lat. creatura compare the Communion Office in the Prayer-Book, ‘receiving these Thy creatures of bread and wine.’ All God’s workmanship ‘is good, and was so pronounced by God Himself at the moment of creation.’ Fairbairn.
‘We read in Genesis 8:21, “I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake;” and the Psalms always speak of this earth and of all created things as if there was no curse at all on them; saying that “all things serve God, and continue as they were at the beginning;” and that “He has given them a law which cannot be broken;” and in the face of those words let who will talk of the earth being cursed, I will not; and you shall not if I can help it.’ Kingsley, Good News of God, p. 35.
‘Oh the yearning when one sees a beautiful thing to make someone else see it too! Surely it is of Heaven!… Every creature of God is good if it be sanctified with prayer and thanksgiving! This to me is the master truth of Christianity! I cannot make people see it, but it seems to me that it was to redeem man and the earth that Christ was made man and used the earth.’ Kingsley, Letters, Abr. ed., 1. p. 72.
nothing to be refused] The form of the Greek favours the making this a separate sentence as R.V., nothing is to be rejected.”

67.) 2Ti 2:9, “for which I suffer hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal; but the Word of God is not imprisoned.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer] Hardship rather than ‘trouble,’ the same word as in 2 Timothy 2:3; malefactor rather than ‘evil doer,’ the same word as of the thieves on the cross, Luke 23:32, these being the only N.T. occurrences.
even unto bonds] ‘Even’ need not have been italicised in A.V., much less omitted by R.V.; for the force of the preposition is more fully given with than without it. In the similar passage, Php 2:8, the ‘obedient unto death’ of A.V. has actually been altered by R.V. into ‘obedient even unto death.’ Vulg. ‘usque ad.’
‘Over the blackened ruins of the city (the firing of which had been falsely set down to the Christians) amid the squalid misery of its inhabitants, perhaps with many a fierce scowl turned on “the malefactor” he passed to his gloomy dungeon. There as the gate clanged upon him, he sat down, chained night and day, without further hope, a doomed man. His case was far more miserable than it had been in his first imprisonment, two or three years earlier. He was no longer permitted to reside “in his own hired room.” He was in the custody, not as before of an honourable soldier like Burrus, but of the foul Tigellinus, whose hands were still dripping with Christian blood.’ Farrar, Messages of the Books, p. 388.
but the word of God is not bound] Not his own preaching power, but the power of the Gospel at large. The Church is more than the individual, however eminent. The perfect passive tense here represents the state, ‘is not in a bound state,’ is not ‘cribbed, cabin’d and confined’; according to the proper force of the perfect, as in 1 Timothy 6:17, nor have their hope set on,’ 2 Timothy 4:8, ‘who have their love set on his appearing.’”

68.) Heb 4:12, “For the Word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

11. For the word of God is quick] “Quick” is an old English expression for “living;” hence St Stephen speaks of Scripture as “the living oracles” (Acts 7:38). The “word of God” is not here the personal Logos; a phrase not distinctly and demonstrably adopted by any of the sacred writers except St John, who in the prologue to his Gospel calls Christ “the Word,” and in the Apocalypse “the Word of God.” The reference is to the written and spoken word of God, of the force and almost personality of which the writer shews so strong a sense. To him it is no dead utterance of the past, but a living power for ever. At the same time the expressions of this verse could hardly have been used by any one who was not familiar with the personification of the Logos, and St Clemens of Rome applies the words “a searcher of the thoughts and desires” to God. The passage closely resembles several which are found in Philo, though it applies the expressions in a different manner (see Introduction).
powerful] Lit., effective, energetic. The vital power shews itself in acts.
sharper than any twoedged sword] The same comparison is used by Isaiah (Isaiah 49:2) and St Paul (Ephesians 6:17) and St john (Revelation 2:16; Revelation 19:15). See too Wis 18:15-16, “Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven … and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword.” Philo compares the Logos to the flaming sword of Eden (Genesis 3:24) and “the fire and knife” (μἁχαιραν) of Genesis 22:6.
piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow] The meaning is not that the word of God divides the soul (the “natural” soul) by which we live from the spirit by which we reason and apprehend; but that it pierces not only the natural soul, but even to the Divine Spirit of man, and even to the joints and marrow (i.e. to the inmost depths) of these. Thus Euripides (Hippol. 527) speaks of the “marrow of the soul.” It is obvious that the writer does not mean anything very specific by each term of the enumeration, which produces its effect by the rhetorical fulness of the expressions. The ψυχὴ or animal soul is the sphere of that life which makes a man ψυχικὸς, i.e. carnal, unspiritual; he possesses this element of life (anima) in common with the beasts. It is only by virtue of his spirit (πνεῦμα) that he has affinity with God.
a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart] These words are a practical explanation of those which have preceded. The phraseology is an evident reminiscence of Philo. Philo compares the Word to the flaming sword of Paradise; and calls the Word “the cutter of all things,” and says that “when whetted to the utmost sharpness it is incessantly dividing all sensuous things” (see Quis Rer. Div. Haeres & § 27; Opp. ed. Mangey i. 491, 503, 506). By enthumçseis is meant (strictly) our moral imaginations and desires; by ennoiai our intellectual thoughts: but the distinction of meaning is hardly kept (Matthew 9:4, &c).”

69.) Heb 6:10, “For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, by having served and by still serving the saints.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For God is not unrighteous - God will do no wrong. He will not forget or fail to reward the endeavors of his people to promote his glory, and to do good. The meaning here is, that by their kindness in ministering to the wants of the saints, they had given full evidence of true piety. If God should forget that, it would be "unrighteous:

(1) because there was a propriety that it should be remembered; and,

(2) because it is expressly promised that it shall not fail of reward; Matthew 10:42.

Your work - Particularly in ministering to the wants of the saints.

Labour of love - Deeds of benevolence when there was no hope of recompense, or when love was the motive in doing it.

Which ye have showed toward his name - Toward him - for the word "name" is often used to denote the person himself. They had showed that they loved God by their kindness to his people; Matthew 25:40, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

In that ye have ministered to the saints - You have supplied their wants. This may refer either to the fact that they contributed to supply the wants of the poor members of the church (compare the note on Galatians 2:10), or it may refer to some special acts of kindness which they had shown to suffering and persecuted Christians. It is not possible now to know to what particular acts the apostle refers. We may learn.

(1) that to show kindness to Christians, because they are Christians, is an important evidence of piety.

(2) it will in no case be unrewarded. God is not "unjust;" and he will remember an act of kindness shown to his people - even though it be nothing but giving a cup of cold water.”

70.) Heb 11:16, “But as it is, they desire a better

country, that is, a Heavenly one. Therefore God is not

ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a City for them.”

The City God has prepared for His children is the Holy City, New Jerusalem: Rev 21:1-27, “Then I saw a New Heaven and a New Earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away (vanished), and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the Holy Ccity, New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, arrayed like a bride adorned for her husband;

and then I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “See! The tabernacle of God is among men, and He will live among them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them [as their God,]

and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be death; there will no longer be sorrow and anguish, or crying, or pain; for the former order of things has passed away.” And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I AM making all things new.” Also He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true [they are accurate, incorruptible, and trustworthy].” And He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the one who thirsts I will give [water] from the fountain of the water of life without cost. “He who overcomes

[the world by adhering faithfully to Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior] will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. “But as for the cowards and unbelieving and abominable [who are devoid of character and personal integrity and practice or tolerate immorality], and murderers, and sorcerers [with intoxicating drugs], and idolaters

and occultists [who practice and teach false religions], and all the liars [who knowingly deceive and twist truth], their part will be in the Lake that blazes with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven final plagues came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a vast and lofty mountain, and showed me the Holy (sanctified) City of Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God, having God’s glory [filled with His radiant light]. The brilliance of it resembled a rare and very precious jewel, like

[fn]jasper, shining and clear as crystal. It had a

massive and high wall, with twelve [large] gates, and at the gates [were stationed] twelve angels; and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were written. On the east side [there were] three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Christ). The one who was speaking with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the City, and its gates and its wall. The City is laid out as a square, its length being the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod—twelve thousand stadia (about 1,400 miles); its length and width and height are equal.

He measured its wall also—a hundred forty-four cubits (about 200 feet), according to man’s measurements, which are [also] angelic

[measurements]. The wall was built of jasper; and the City was pure gold, transparent like clear crystal.

The foundation stones of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;

the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite (yellow topaz); the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each separate gate was of one single pearl. And the street (broad way) of the City was pure gold, like transparent crystal. I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty [the Omnipotent, the Ruler of all] and the Lamb are its temple. And the City has no need of the sun nor of the moon to give light to it, for the glory (splendor, radiance) of God has illumined it, and the Lamb is its lamp and light.

The nations [the redeemed people from the earth] will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring into it their glory. By day (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed [in fear of evil];

and they will bring the glory (splendor, majesty) and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing that defiles or profanes or is unwashed will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices abominations [detestable, morally repugnant things] and lying, but only those [will be admitted] whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (AMP)

God has prepared for His childre is also written,

1Co 2:9, “but just as it is written: “THINGS WHICH

EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD,

AND WHICH HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HUMAN

HEART, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

71.) Jas 2:19, “You believe that God is One. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. Thou believest that there is one God …] The instance of the faith in which men were trusting is important as shewing the class of Solifidians (to use a term which controversy has made memorable) which St James had in view. They were not those who were believing in the Son of God, trusting in the love, the blood, in the language of a later age, the merits, of Christ, but men who, whether nominally Christians or Jews, were still clinging to their profession of the Creed of Israel as the ground of all their hopes. It is scarcely probable that a writer intending to correct consequences drawn from St Paul’s teaching as to faith would have been content with such a far-off illustration.
thou doest well] The words have the character of a half-ironical concession. Comp. note on James 2:8. It is well as far as it goes, but the demons can claim the same praise.
the devils also believe and tremble] Better “shudder.” The general bearing of the words is plain enough, but there is a special meaning which is commonly passed over. The “devils” are the “demons” or “unclean spirits” of the Gospels, thought of, not as in their prison-house of darkness (Jude James 2:6), but as “possessing” and tormenting men. As such, they too acknowledged the Unity and Sovereignty of God, but that belief, being without love, led only to the “shudder” of terror, when the Divine Name was uttered in the formulæ of exorcism. (Comp. Matthew 8:29; Mark 9:20; Mark 9:26.) Here then was an instance in which belief in a dogma, as distinct from trust in a person, brought with it no consciousness of peace or pardon, and what was true of the “demons” might be true also of men.”

72.) Jas 4:6, “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. But he giveth more grace] Following the explanation already given, the sequence of thought seems to run thus: God loves us with a feeling analogous to the strongest form of jealousy, or even envy, but that jealousy does not lead Him, as it leads men, to be grudging in His gifts; rather does He bestow, as its result, a greater measure of His grace than before, or than He would do, were His attitude towards us one of strict unimpassioned Justice.
Wherefore he saith …] The nominative to the verb is not expressed, and we may, with almost equal fitness, supply the Scripture, the Spirit, or God.
God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble] The point of the quotation lies in the last clause, as containing the proof of what St James had just asserted, that God gave His grace freely to those who thought themselves least worthy of it. It is to be noticed (1) that we again find St James quoting from one of the great sapiential books of the Old Testament (Proverbs 3:34), and (2) that St Peter also quotes it (1 Peter 5:5). That maxim of the wise of old had become, as it were, a law of life for the Community at Jerusalem. Clement of Rome follows their example (c. 30).”

73.) 1Jo 1:5, “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5–7. Fellowship with God and with the Brethren
5. This then is the message which we have heard of Him] Better, And the message which we have heard from Him is this. ‘This’ is the predicate, as so often in S. John: ‘But the judgment is this’ (John 3:19); ‘The commandment is this’ (John 15:12); ‘The eternal life is this’ (John 17:3): comp. 1 John 3:11; 1 John 3:23; 1 John 5:3; 1 John 5:11; 1 John 5:14; 2 John 1:6. In all these cases ‘is this’ means ‘This is what it consists in, This is the sum and substance of it’. The conjunction does not introduce an inference: here, as in the Gospel, the main portion of the writing is joined on to the Introduction by a simple ‘and’. Tyndale, Cranmer, and the Rhemish all have ‘and’: ‘then’ comes from Geneva, apparently under the influence of Beza’s igitur. The connexion of thought seems to be this. S. John is writing that we may have fellowship with God (1 John 1:3): and in order to have this we must know 1. what God is (1 John 1:5), and 2. what we consequently are bound to be (6–10). The word for ‘message’ (ἀγγελία) occurs only in this Epistle (1 John 3:11) in N.T., but is more frequent in LXX.
Once more we have a striking parallel between Gospel and Epistle: the Gospel opens with a sentence very similar in form; ‘And the witness of John is this’ (John 1:19). All these similarities strengthen the belief that the two were written about the same time, and were intended to accompany one another.
from Him] From Christ. The pronoun used (αὐτός) is not the one (ἐκεῖνος) commonly used for Christ in this Epistle. But here the context decides: ‘Him’ refers back to ‘His Son Jesus Christ’ (1 John 1:3), the subject of the opening verses (1–3). Moreover, it was from Christ, and not immediately from the Father, that the Apostles received their message.
and declare unto you] Better, and announce unto you: not precisely the same verb as was rendered ‘declare’ in 1 John 1:2-3. Both are compounds of the same verb; but while the former has merely the notion of proclaiming and making known, this has the notion of proclaiming again what has been received elsewhere. The one is annuntiare, the other renuntiare. S. John hands on the message received from Christ: it is no invention of his own. It is a message, and not a discovery. So also the Spirit makes known or reveals to us truths which proceed from the Father (John 16:13-15): comp. John 4:25; 2 Corinthians 7:7; 1 Peter 1:12, where the same verb is used in all cases.
God is light] This is the theme of the first main division of the Epistle, as ‘God is Love’ of the second: so that this verse stands in the same relation to the first great division as 1 John 1:1-4 to the whole Epistle. No one tells us so much about the Nature of God as S. John: other writers tell us what God does, and what attributes He possesses; S. John tells us what He is. There are three statements in the Bible which stand alone as revelations of the Nature of God, and they are all in the writings of S. John: ‘God is spirit’ (John 4:24); ‘God is light’, and ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). In all these momentous statements the predicate has no article, either definite or indefinite. We are not told that God is the Spirit, or the Light, or the Love: nor (in all probability) that He is a Spirit, or a light. But ‘God is spirit, is light, is love’: spirit, light, love are His very Nature. They are not mere attributes, like mercy and justice: they are Himself. They are probably the nearest approach to a definition of God that the human mind could frame or comprehend: and in the history of thought and religion they are unique. The more we consider them, the more they satisfy us. The simplest intellect can understand their meaning; the subtlest cannot exhaust it. No philosophy, no religion, not even the Jewish, had risen to the truth that God is light. ‘The Lord shall be to thee an everlasting light’ (Isaiah 60:19-20) is far short of it. But S. John knows it: and lest the great message which he conveys to us in his Gospel, ‘God is spirit’, should seem somewhat bare and empty in its indefiniteness, he adds this other message in his Epistle, ‘God is light, God is love’. No figure borrowed from the material world could give the idea of perfection so clearly and fully as light. It suggests ubiquity, brightness, happiness, intelligence, truth, purity, holiness. It suggests excellence without limit and without taint; an excellence whose nature it is to communicate itself and to pervade everything from which it is not of set purpose shut out. ‘Let there be light’ was the first fiat of the Creator; and on it all the rest depends. Light is the condition of beauty, and life, and growth, and activity: and this is as true in the intellectual, moral, and spiritual spheres as in the material universe.
Of the many beautiful and true ideas which the utterance ‘God is light’ suggests to us, two are specially prominent in this Epistle; intelligence and holiness. The Christian, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and in communion with God in Christ, possesses (1) knowledge, (2) righteousness. (1) ‘Ye know Him which is from the beginning’ (1 John 2:13-14); ‘I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it’ (1 John 2:21); ‘Ye need not that anyone teach you’ (1 John 2:27); &c. &c. (2) ‘Every one that hath this hope on him purifieth himself, even as He is pure’ (1 John 3:3); ‘Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God’; &c. &c.
and in Him is no darkness at all] Or, retaining the telling order of the Greek, and darkness in Him there is none at all. This antithetic parallelism is characteristic of S. John’s style. He frequently emphasizes a statement by following it up with a denial of its opposite. Thus, in the next verse, ‘We lie, and do not the truth’. Comp. ‘We lead ourselves astray, and the truth is not in us’ (1 John 1:8); Abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him’ (1 John 2:10); ‘Is true, and is no lie’ (1 John 2:27): comp. 1 John 2:4. So also in the Gospel: see on John 1:3. The denial here is very strong, the negative being doubled in the Greek; ‘none whatever, none at all’.
Another parallel between the Gospel and the Epistle must here be pointed out. In the Prologue to the former we have these ideas in succession; the Word, life, light, darkness. The same four follow in the same order here; ‘the Word of life’, ‘the life was manifested’, ‘God is light, and darkness in Him there is none’. Must we not suppose that the sequence of thought here has been influenced by the sequence in the corresponding portion of the Gospel?
The figurative use of ‘darkness’ for moral darkness, i.e. error and sin, is very frequent in S. John (1 John 2:8-9; 1 John 2:11; see on John 1:5; John 8:12). These passages shew that the meaning of this verse cannot be, ‘God has now been revealed, and no part of His Nature remains unknown’; which, moreover, could never be stated of Him who is incomprehensible. S. John is laying the foundation of Christian Ethics, of which the very first principle is that there is a God who intellectually, morally, and spiritually is light.
“In speaking of ‘light’ and ‘darkness’ it is probable that S. John had before him the Zoroastrian speculations on the two opposing spiritual powers which influenced Christian thought at a very early date” (Westcott).
1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:28. God is Light
1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:11. What Walking in the Light involves
This section is largely directed against the Gnostic doctrine that to the man of enlightenment all conduct is morally indifferent. Against every form of this doctrine, which sapped the very foundations of Christian Ethics, the Apostle never wearies of inveighing. So far from its being true that all conduct is alike to the enlightened man, it is the character of his conduct that will shew whether he is enlightened or not. If he is walking in the light his condition and conduct will exhibit these things; 1. Fellowship with God and with the Brethren (5–7); 2. Consciousness and Confession of Sin (8–10); 3. Obedience to God by Imitation of Christ (1 John 2:1-6); 4. Love of the Brethren (1 John 2:7-11).”

74.) 1Jo 3:20, “that if our heart condemns us, that God is greater than our heart, and He knows all things.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

20. For if our heart condemn us] It is possible to attach this to the preceding verse (reading ὅ τι ἐάν, a construction found Acts 3:23 and Galatians 5:10, and perhaps Colossians 3:17, for ὅτι ἐάν), and to render with R. V., whereinsoever our heart condemn us: but see next note. “A Christian’s heart burdened with a sense of its own unworthiness forms an unfavourable opinion of the state of the soul, pronounces against its salvation. If we are conscious of practically loving the brethren, we can adduce this as evidence of the contrary, and give the heart ground to change its opinion, and to reassure itself. Anyone who has had experience of the doubts and fears which spring up in a believer’s heart from time to time, of whether he is or is not in a state of condemnation, will feel the need and the efficacy of this test of faith and means of assurance” (Jelf).
God is greater than our heart] On overwhelming evidence (אBCKL) we must insert ‘because’ or ‘that’ (ὅτι) before ‘God is greater’. If the reading and rendering of the preceding clause adopted in R. V. is right, ‘because God is greater’ will make good sense. Because God is superior to our consciences in being omniscient, we may (when our love is sincere and fruitful), persuade our consciences before Him to acquit us. Our consciences through imperfect knowledge may be either too strict or too easy with us: God cannot be either, for He knows and weighs all.
But it seems almost certain that ‘if our heart condemn us’ must be right, as the natural correlative of ‘if our heart condemn us not’, which is indisputably right. This progress by means of opposites stated side by side has been S. John’s method all through: ‘if we confess our sins’ and ‘if we say that we have not sinned’ (1 John 1:9-10); ‘he that loveth his brother’ and ‘he that hateth his brother’ (1 John 2:10-11); ‘he that doeth righteousness’ and ‘he that doeth sin’ (1 John 3:7-8); ‘every spirit that confesseth’ and ‘every spirit that confesseth not’ (1 John 4:2-3). But, if this is accepted, what is to be done with the apparently redundant’ because’ or ‘that’? Two plans are suggested: 1. to supply ‘it is’ before because’; 2. to supply ‘it is plain’ (δῆλον) before ‘that’. The latter seems preferable: for what can be the meaning of ‘if our heart condemn us, (it is) because God is greater than our heart’? Whereas, ‘if our heart condemn us, (it is plain) that God is greater than our heart’ makes excellent sense. There is perhaps a similar ellipse of ‘it is plain’ (ὅτι = δῆλον ὅτι) 1 Timothy 6:7; ‘We brought nothing into the world, and (it is plain) that we can carry nothing out.’ And other instances are quoted from S. Chrysostom (X. p. 38 BD; p. 122 B, where some editors insert δῆλον).
We must not give ‘God is greater’ a one-sided interpretation, either ‘God is more merciful’ or ‘God is more strict’. It means that He is a more perfect judge than our heart can be. It is the difference between conscience and Omniscience.
and knoweth all things] The ‘and’ is epexegetic; it explains the special character of God’s superiority when the soul stands before the judgment-seat of conscience. He knows all things; on the one hand the light and grace against which we have sinned, on the other the reality of our repentance and our love. It was to this infallible omniscience that S. Peter appealed, in humble distrust of his own feeling and judgment; ‘Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee’ (John 21:17). It is the reality and activity of our love (1 John 3:18-19) which gives us assurance under the accusations of conscience. Comp. ‘If ye forgive men their trespasses’, having genuine love for them, ‘your heavenly Father will also forgive you’, and ye will be able to persuade your hearts before Him (Matthew 6:14).
The force of 1 John 3:19-20 may be thus summed up: ‘By loving our brethren in deed and truth we come to know that we are God’s children and have His presence within us, and are enabled to meet the disquieting charges of conscience. For, if conscience condemns us, its verdict is neither infallible nor final. We may still appeal to the omniscient God, whose love implanted within us is a sign that we are not condemned and rejected by Him.”

75.) 1Jo 4:8, “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - In giving the opposite, St. John again varies the thought, this time very remarkably. Instead of "love is of God" (verse 7), we have "God is Love" - a far deeper thought; and instead of "knoweth not God," we have "knew not God," or, as we should say in English, "hath not known" or "never knew God." The man's not loving his brother shows that in no real sense has he ever in the past known God: he is of the world (chapter 3:1), not of God. We must beware of watering down "God is Love" into "God is loving," or even "God of all beings is the most loving." Love is not a mere attribute of God; like light, it is his very nature. As "God is Light" sums up the Being of God intellectually considered, so "God is Love" sums up the same on the moral side. Only when this strong meaning is given to the statement does St. John's argument hold, that "he that loveth not knoweth not God." A man who has no idea of any one of the attributes of God, as order, or beauty, or power, or justice, has an imperfect knowledge of God. But he who has no idea of love has no knowledge of God, for love is himself. God alone loves in the fullest and highest sense of the word; for he alone loves with perfect disinterestedness. It is love which alone can explain creation. Why should a Being perfectly blessed in himself create other beings, but to bestow a blessing upon them? 1 John 4:8.”

These simple truths are only in Christianity: God is Light, God is Love, God gives Life. These three doctrines almost cover everything you must know about God. If you have Life, Light, and Love -- you have everything.

76.) 1Pe 4:17, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the Gospel of God?”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

17. For the time is come that judgment must begin] Literally, It is the season of the beginning of the judgment. The words of the Apostle stand in close connexion with his belief that he was living in the last age of the world, that “the end of all things was at hand.” (See note on 1 Peter 4:7.) He saw in the persecutions and sufferings that fell on the Church, beginning “from the house of God,” the opening of that judgment. It was not necessarily a work of condemnation. Those on whom it fell might be judged in order that they might not be condemned (comp. 1 Corinthians 11:32). But it was a time which, like the final judgment, was one of separation. It was trying the reality of the faith of those who professed to believe in Christ, and dividing the true disciples from the hypocrites and half-hearted. The “house of God” is His family, His Ecclesia, as in 1 Timothy 3:15, and the “spiritual house” of chap. 1 Peter 2:5.
what shall the end be of them that obey not] The à fortiori argument reminds us in some measure of that of St Paul, “If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also spare not thee” (Romans 11:21). There, however, the contrast lay between Israel after the flesh that was rejected for its unfaithfulness and the new Israel after the spirit if it too should prove unfaithful. Here it lies between the true Israel of God and the outlying heathen world. With a question which is more awful than any assertion, he asks, as to those that obey not, What shall be their end? The thought was natural enough to have been quite spontaneous, but it may also have been the echo of like thoughts that had passed through the minds of the older prophets. “I begin to bring evil upon the city which is called by my Name, and shall ye”—the nations of the heathen—“be utterly unpunished?” Jeremiah 25:29. Comp. also Jeremiah 49:12; Ezekiel 9:6.”

77.) 1Pe 4:19, “Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God are to entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God; rather, let them also that suffer. St. Peter sums up his exhortation; he returns to the thought of 1 Peter 3:17, "It is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well-doing, than for evil-doing." In the hour of suffering, as well as in times of prosperity, we are in the hands of a merciful and loving Father; we are to learn submission, not because the suffering is inevitable, but because it is according to his will, and his will is our sanctification and salvation. Commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator; rather, as in the Revised Version, commit their souls in well-doing unto a faithful Creator. The conjunction "as" must be omitted, not being found in any of the best manuscripts. The word rendered "Creator" (κτίστης) Occurs nowhere else in the Greek Testament. God is our Creator, the Father of spirits, He gave the spirit; to him it returneth. We must imitate our dying Lord, and, like him, commit our souls to the keeping of our heavenly Father as a deposit which may be left with perfect confidence in the hands of a faithful Creator (see 2 Timothy 1:12). There is an evident reference here to our Lord's words upon the cross (Luke 23:46; Psalm 31:5). St. Peter adds, "in well-doing." The Christian's faith must bring forth the fruits of holy living; even in the midst of suffering he must "be careful to maintain good works."
1 Peter 4:19.”

78.) 1Pe 5:12, “Through Silvanus, our faithful

brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. By Silvanus, a faithful brother unto you, as I suppose] The Greek order of the words leaves it open whether “to you” is to be construed with “faithful” as in the English version, or with “I have written,” the former being, on the whole, preferable. If with the Received Text we admit the article before “faithful,” we might translate the brother who is faithful to you, but in some of the better MSS. the article is wanting. In any case the way in which Silvanus is mentioned implies that he was already known to the readers of the Epistle. There is no ground for questioning his identity with the “Silas” of Acts 15:22; Acts 15:32; Acts 15:40, the “Silvanus” of 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Corinthians 1:19, the second name having probably been taken, after the manner common among Jews (comp. the change from Saul to Paulus, Joshua to Jason, John surnamed Marcus, and other like instances), when he went as a missionary into Gentile countries. It is obvious that the circumstances of his life gave him special qualifications for maintaining or restoring unity of teaching and feeling between the Jewish and Gentile sections of the Church. Trained in the Church of Jerusalem and known as possessing prophetic gifts (Acts 15:32), he had been chosen, with Barsabas, to be the bearer of the encyclical letter from the Council of Apostles and Elders, and to enforce its purport orally. Throwing himself so heartily into the work of preaching to the Gentiles that he was chosen by St Paul as his companion on his second missionary journey, travelling with him and Timotheus through Galatia, Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth, he was conspicuously fitted to carry on the work which St Paul had begun. The scattered notices above referred to do not carry us further than his work at Corinth, and we are left to conjecture how he had filled up the interval that had elapsed since that date. What we now read suggests (1) that he had been working among the Churches of the provinces of Asia Minor named in chap. 1 Peter 1:1, and had gained their confidence; (2) that after St Paul’s final departure from those regions he had turned to St Peter as still within reach, and had brought under his notice the sufferings of the Christians there; and (3) that he was sent back with the Epistie that was to guide and comfort them. It is a probable conjecture that St Peter may have received from him copies of the Epistles of St Paul to which he refers in 2 Peter 3:15-16. The Greek verb for “I have written,” as being in the epistolary aorist, is rightly taken as referring to this Epistle, and not, as some commentators have thought, to a lost earlier one. The words “by Silvanus” may imply that he was either the amanuensis, or the bearer of the letter, or possibly, that he united the two characters.
as I suppose] The Greek verb (the same as in 1 Corinthians 4:1; 2 Corinthians 11:5) does not carry with it the slight touch of uncertainty which attaches to the common use of the English word.
briefly] We may perhaps think of the Apostle as comparing the brevity of what he had written with the longer Epistles of St Paul, such as Romans , 1 and 2 Corinthians.
testifying that this is the true grace of God wherein ye stand] The words have a special significance as connected with the mission of Silvanus. The great Apostle of the Circumcision, writing to the Churches that had been mainly planted and taught by the Apostle of the Gentiles, bears his full testimony that the “grace” by which they “stand” is no counterfeit, but in very deed a reality. Now, as when he and John and James the brother of the Lord gave to Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship (Galatians 2:9), he recognises “the grace of God” that had been given to them and through them. The attestation thus given of unbroken harmony stands, it need hardly be said, in singular contrast with the position of antagonism to St Paul and his teaching ascribed to St Peter in the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions, which represent the later workings of the Judaizing party. See notes on 2 Peter 3:15.”

79.) 1Jo 2:17, “The world is passing away and

also its lusts; but the one who does the will of

God continues to live forever.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. and the world passeth away] Or, is passing away; as in 1 John 2:8 : the process is now going on. We owe the verb ‘pass away’ here to Coverdale: it is a great improvement on Tyndale’s ‘vanisheth away.’ Comp. ‘The fashion of this world is passing away’ (1 Corinthians 7:31), where the same verb is used, and where the active in a neuter sense is equivalent to the middle here and in 1 John 2:8.
and the lust thereof] Not the lust for the world, but the lust which it exhibits, the sinful tendencies mentioned in 1 John 2:16. The world is passing away with all its evil ways. How foolish, therefore, to fix one’s affections on what not only cannot endure but is already in process of dissolution! ‘The lust thereof’ = ‘all that is in the world.’
the will of God] This is the exact opposite of ‘all that is in the world’. The one sums up all the tendencies to good in the universe, the other all the tendencies to evil. We see once more how S. John in giving us the antithesis of a previous idea expands it and makes it fructify. He says that the world and all its will and ways are on the wane: but as the opposite of this he says, not merely that God and His will and ways abide, but that ‘he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever’. This implies that he who follows the ways of the world will not abide for ever. Again he speaks of the love of the world and the love of the Father; but as the opposite of the man who loves the world he says not ‘he that loveth the Father,’ but ‘he that doeth the will of the Father’. This implies that true love involves obedience. Thus we have a double antithesis. On the one hand we have the world and the man who loves it and follows its ways: they both pass away. On the other hand we have God and the man who loves Him and does His will: they both abide for ever. Instead of the goods of this life (βίος) in which the world would allow him to vaunt for a moment, he who doeth the will of God has that eternal life (ζωή) in which the true Christian has fellowship with God. ‘For ever’ is literally ‘unto the age’, i.e. ‘unto the age to come’, the kingdom of heaven; the word for ‘age’ (αἰών) being the substantive from which the word for ‘eternal’ (αἰώνιος) is derived. He who does God’s will shall abide until the kingdom of God comes and be a member of it. The latter fact, though not stated, is obviously implied. It would be a punishment and not a blessing to be allowed, like Moses, to see the kingdom but not enter it. The followers of the world share the death of the world: the children of God share His eternal life.
Here probably we should make a pause in reading the Epistle. What follows is closely connected with what precedes and is suggested by it: but there is, nevertheless, a new departure, which is made with much solemnity.”

80.) 1Jo 3:2, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. Beloved] This form of address only occurs once in the first part of the Epistle (1 John 2:7), just where the subject of love appears for a few verses: it becomes the more common form of address (1 John 3:2; 1 John 3:21, 1 John 4:1; 1 John 4:7; 1 John 4:11) now that the main subject is love. Similarly, in 1 John 3:13, where brotherly love is the special subject, ‘brethren’ is the form of address.
now are we the sons of God] Rather, as before, now are we children of God. ‘Now’ is placed first in emphatic contrast to ‘not yet,’ which has a similar position. Our privileges in this world are certain; our glories in the world to come still continue veiled. The term ‘children’ is in harmony with this: ‘child’ necessarily implies future development; ‘son’ does not.
it doth not yet appear] Better, as R. V., it is not yet made manifest; it is the same verb as we have already had 1 John 1:2, 1 John 2:19; 1 John 2:28. As it is one of S. John’s favourite expressions it is all the more important that it should be rendered in the same way throughout his writings. See on 1 John 2:28.
but we know that, when he shall appear] The ‘but’ must be omitted on overwhelming evidence (אABC, Vulgate): We know that if it shall be manifested. Here there is no difference of reading (as there is in 1 John 2:28) between ‘when’ and ‘if’; but earlier English Versions, under the influence of the Vulgate (cum apparuerit), have ‘when’ in both cases. ‘If’ in both cases is right; but it has been either changed in the Greek, or shirked in translation, as appearing to imply a doubt respecting the manifestation. It implies no doubt as to the fact, but shews that the results of the fact are more important than the time: comp. ‘if I be lifted up from the earth’, and ‘If I go and prepare a place for you’ (John 12:32; John 14:3).
It is less easy to determine between ‘if it shall be manifested’ and ‘if He shall be manifested; ‘it’ meaning what we shall be hereafter, and ‘He’ meaning Christ. No nominative is expressed in the Greek, and it is rather violent to supply a new nominative, differing from that of the very same verb in the previous sentence: therefore ‘it’ seems preferable. ‘We know that if our future state is made manifest we, who are children of God, shall be found like our Father’. On the other hand, 1 John 2:28 favours ‘if He shall be manifested.’ The word for know (οἴδαμεν) is that used in 1 John 2:20-21, not that used in 1 John 2:3; 1 John 2:13-14; 1 John 2:18, 1 John 3:1. No progress in knowledge is implied, no additional experience: our future resemblance to our Father is a fact of which as Christians we are aware: comp. 1 John 5:18-20.

we shall be like him] If we render ‘if He (i.e. Christ) shall be manifested’, this naturally means ‘we shall be like Christ;’ which, however true in itself, is not the point. The point is that children are found to be like their Father. This is an additional reason for preferring ‘if it shall be manifested’. Tyndale and Cranmer have ‘it’, Wiclif, Genevan, and Rhemish have ‘he’.
for we shall see him as he is] Better, because we shall see Him even as He is; ‘because’ as in 1 John 3:9; 1 John 3:20; 1 John 3:22, 1 John 2:13-14, &c., and ‘even as’ as in 1 John 3:3; 1 John 3:7; 1 John 3:23, 1 John 2:6; 1 John 2:27, &c. ‘Because’ or ‘for’ may give the cause either (1) of our knowing that we shall be like Him, or (2) of our being like Him. Both make good sense; but, in spite of ‘we know’ being the principal sentence grammatically, the statement which most needs explanation is the subordinate one, that we shall be like God. ‘We shall be like Him’, says the Apostle, ‘because, as you know, we shall see Him’. Comp. ‘But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory’ (2 Corinthians 3:18); the sight of God will glorify us. This also is in harmony with the prayer of the great High Priest; ‘And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given unto them’ (John 17:22). Comp. ‘And they shall see His face’ (Revelation 22:4). The ‘even as’ emphasizes the reality of the sight: no longer ‘in a mirror, darkly’, but ‘face to face’.”

81.) 1Jo 3:10, “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother and sister.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

In this the children of God are manifest ... - That is, this furnishes a test of their true character. The test is found in doing righteousness, and in the love of the brethren. The former he had illustrated; the latter he now proceeds to illustrate. The general idea is, that if a person is not truly a righteous person, and does not love the brethren, he cannot be a child of God. Perhaps by the phrase in this, using a pronoun in the singular number, he means to intimate that an important part of righteousness consists in brotherly love.

Whosoever doeth not righteousness, is not of God - In 1 John 3:7, he had said that "he that doeth righteousness is of God."

If that is true, then what he here affirms must be true also, that a man who does not righteousness is not of God. The general idea is the same, that no one can be a true Christian who is not in fact a righteous man.

Neither he that loveth not his brother - The illustration of this point continues to 1 John 3:18. The general sense is, that brotherly love is essential to the Christian character, and that he who does not possess it cannot be a Christian. On the nature and importance of brotherly love as an evidence of piety, see the notes at John 13:34-35.”

82.) 1Jo 4:2, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. Hereby know ye] Or, Herein ye know: the verb may be either indicative or imperative (comp. 1 John 2:27; 1 John 2:29). The indicative is preferable, in spite of the imperatives in 1 John 4:1 : comp. 1 John 3:16; 1 John 3:19; 1 John 3:24, which are very closely parallel to this. ‘Ye know’ is literally ‘ye come to know, perceive, recognise’: ‘herein’ refers to what follows: see on 1 John 3:19.
every spirit that confesseth] This idea of ‘confessing’ one’s belief is specially frequent in S. John: John 2:23; John 4:15; 2 John 1:7; John 9:22; John 12:42; comp. Romans 10:9.
that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh] See on 2 John 1:7. This is the crucial test, and one which would at once expose ‘the spirits’ of Cerinthian and Docetic teachers. We are not to suppose that all other articles of faith are unimportant; or that to deny this truth is the worst of all denials (see on 1 John 2:22); or that such denial involves every kind of doctrinal error. But against the errors prevalent in that age this was the great safeguard. The confession must of course be not with the tongue only but in truth, and in deed as well as in word (1 John 3:18): non lingua sed factis, non sonando sed amando (Bede).
The sentence may be taken in more ways than one: (1) as both A. V. and R. V.; (2) more accurately, and with some difference of meaning; confesseth Jesus Christ as come in the flesh; (3) confesseth that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh. Remark that S. John does not say ‘come into the flesh’, but ‘in the flesh’: Christ did not descend (as Cerinthus said) into an already existing man, but He came in human nature; He ‘became flesh’. Moreover he does not say that the confession is to be of a Christ who came (ἐλθόντα), but of a Christ who is come (ἐληλυθότα). This ‘coming’ is not an exhausted fact: He is come and abides in the flesh.
S. Paul gives almost exactly the same test: ‘I give you to understand that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit’ (1 Corinthians 12:3).
is of God] Proceeds from Him as its source: comp. 1 John 3:10. “To confess that Jesus the anointed is come in the flesh, is to confess that there is a medium of spiritual communications between the visible and the invisible world, between earth and heaven. It is to confess that there is one Mediator for all men” (Maurice).”

83.) 1Jo 4:12, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. No man hath seen God at any time] Better, as R. V., No man hath beheld God at any time: a different verb (τεθέαται) is used here from that used in 1 John 4:20 and in John 1:18 (ἑώρακαν) where we have exactly the same statement. The verb used here implies something of gazing and contemplation: our word ‘theatre’ comes from it. Comp. ‘Whom no man hath seen, nor can see’ (1 Timothy 6:16).

Once more (see on 1 John 4:7) the connecting lines of thought are not on the surface, and cannot be affirmed with certainty. What follows seems to give the clue to what otherwise looks like an abrupt transition. ‘I say we must love one another, for by so doing we have proof of the presence of the invisible God. No amount of contemplation ever yet enabled any one to detect God’s presence. Let us love one another, and then we are sure, not only that He is with us but in us, and not merely is, but abides’. Here, as in John 1:18, ‘God’ stands first for emphasis: God no one hath ever yet beheld.
God dwelleth in us] Better, as R. V., God abideth in us (see on 1 John 2:24): He is not a momentary visitant but a permanent friend and guest.
his love is perfected in us] Or, the love of Him is perfected in us. ‘His love’ to us can scarcely be meant; for in what sense would our loving one another perfect that? Moreover, as already noticed, ‘the love of God’ in this Epistle commonly means man’s love to Him, not His to man (1 John 2:5, 1 John 3:17, 1 John 5:3). ‘His love’ might possibly mean the love which characterizes Him, or the love which He has implanted in us; but the other is simpler. Our love to God is developed and perfected by our loving one another. We practise and strengthen our love of the Unseen by shewing love to the seen. See on 1 John 2:5.”

84.) 1Jo 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. For this is the love of God Or, For the love of God is this, i.e. consists in this: see on 1 John 1:5. The truth implied in 1 John 5:2, that love involves obedience, is here explicitly stated. Comp. John 14:15; John 14:21; John 14:23; John 15:10; 2 John 1:6.
his commandments are not grievous] For two reasons: 1. Because He gives us strength to bear them; juvat qui jubet (Php 4:13); 2. Because love makes them light. They are not like the ‘burdens grievous to be borne’ which the legal rigour of the Pharisees laid on men’s consciences. Here again we have an echo of the Master’s words; ‘My yoke is easy, and My burden is light’ (Matthew 11:30).”

85.) 1Jo 5:4, “For whoever has been born of God

overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.”

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. Reason why keeping even the difficult commandment of loving others rather than oneself is not a grievous burden. It is the world and its ways which makes the Divine commands grievous, and the new birth involved in faith gives us a new unworldly nature and a strength which conquers the world.
For whatsoever is born of God] Or, Because whatsoever is begotten of God: see on 1 John 5:1. The collective neuter, ‘whatsoever’, gives the principle a wide sweep by stating it in its most abstract form: comp. John 6:37; John 17:2. Moreover, whereas the masculine would make the victorious person prominent, the neuter emphasizes rather the victorious power. It is not the man, but his birth from God, which conquers. In 1 John 5:1 we had the masculine and in 1 John 5:18 return to the masculine again. In all three cases we have the perfect, not the aorist, participle. It is not the mere fact of having received the Divine birth that is insisted on, but the permanent results of the birth. Comp. John 3:6; John 3:8, where we have the same tense and a similar change from neuter to masculine.
this is the victory that overcometh] Better, the victory that overcame the world is this (see on 1 John 1:5): aorist, of a victory won once for all. Faith, which is ‘the proof of things not seen’ (Hebrews 11:1) which ‘are eternal’ (2 Corinthians 4:18), has conquered the world which is visible and ‘is passing away’ (1 John 2:17). Faith is both the victory and the victor. Under the influence of the Vulgate’s vincit, Wiclif, Luther, Tyndale and many others all have the present tense here. In the faith which has won a decisive victory the believer goes on conquering. ‘Victory’ (νίκη) occurs nowhere else in N.T.”

86.) 1Jo 5:5, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

Benson Commentary

1 John 5:5. Who is he that overcometh the world — That is superior to all earthly care, desire, fear? Who is the man, and where is he to be found? Surely none have gained, or will gain, this important victory, but they who believe that Jesus is the Son of God — “The great principles,” says Doddridge, “peculiar to our divine religion, a sense of redeeming love, and the prospect of such a sublime and perpetual happiness as the gospel opens upon us, can alone be sufficient to teach us to triumph over these transitory vanities, and to establish a uniform character, superior to the variety of temptations with which we may be assaulted: while the boasted triumphs of others, upon meaner principles, have been very partial and imperfect, and they have evidently been seduced by one vanity, while they have gloried in despising another.” “That the Jews,” says Macknight, “universally believed their Messiah, or Christ, was to be the Son of God, appears from many passages of the New Testament, especially from the following: Peter answered, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, Matthew 16:16. Devils also came out of many, crying out, Thou art Christ, the Son of God, Luke 4:41. These things are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, John 20:31. And that the Jews universally believed the Son of God to be God, appears from the following passages: Jesus answered, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God, John 5:17-18. The Jews answered, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, because thou, being a man, makest thyself God, John 10:33. The high-priest said, I adjure thee, &c., that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus saith to him, Thou hast said. Then the high-priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy: what think ye? they answered, He is guilty of death, Matthew 26:63. “The high-priest and council, composed of men of the highest learning and rank among the Jews, equally with the common people, believed that the Messiah was to be the Son of God, and that the Son of God is himself God, otherwise they could not have reckoned Jesus a blasphemer for calling himself Christ, the Son of God. From these indisputable facts it is evident that the modern Socinians contradict the gospel history in two of its essential articles, when they affirm that the first Jewish Christians, before their conversion, had no idea that their Messiah was to come down from heaven, having never been taught to expect any other than a man like themselves. Next, since John hath so frequently declared, and, in what followeth the verse under consideration, hath proved that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, the same Socinians must be mistaken when they affirm, that in this epistle John is silent concerning the divinity of Christ, and hath not in any part of it censured those who deny it.”

87.) 3Jo 1:11, “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does what is good

is of God; the one who does what is evil has not seen God.”

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good - There can be no doubt that in this exhortation the writer had Diotrephes particularly in his eye, and that he means to exhort Gaius not to imitate his example. He was a man of influence in the church, and though Gaius had shown that he was disposed to act in an independent manner, yet it was not improper to exhort him not to be influenced by the example of any one who did wrong. John wished to excite him to acts of liberal and generous hospitality.

He that doeth good is of God - He shows that he resembles God, for God continually does good. See the sentiment explained in the notes at 1 John 3:7.

He that doeth evil hath not seen God - See the notes at 1 John 3:8-10.”

88.) Rev 1:8, “I AM the Alpha and the Omega,”

says the Lord God, “Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.”

Benson Commentary

Revelation 1:8. I am Alpha and Omega, saith the Lord — Alpha is the first, Omega the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Let his enemies boast and rage ever so much in the intermediate time, yet he is both the Alpha, or beginning, and the Omega, or end, of all things. Grotius and Bengelius read, λεγει Κυριος ο θεος, saith the Lord God a reading with which the Vulgate accords, having, it seems, understood the verse as spoken by the Father. Accordingly Bengelius’s note is, “God is the beginning, as he is the Author and Creator of all things, and as he proposes, declares, and promises such great things. He is the end, as he brings all the things which are here revealed to a complete and glorious conclusion. Again, the beginning and end of a thing is, in Scripture, styled the whole thing. Therefore, God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end; that is, one who is all things, and always the same.” See Wesley. It will, however, as Doddridge observes, be difficult to give sufficient proof that the words of this verse were spoken by the Father. “Most of the phrases which are here used concerning this glorious Person, are afterward used concerning our Lord Jesus Christ; and παντοκρατωρ, almighty, though in ecclesiastical writers of the earliest ages it is generally appropriated to the Father, may, according to the Syriac version, be rendered, He who holds; that is, superintends, supports, and governs all; and then it is applied to Christ, Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3. But if, after all, the words should be understood as spoken by the Father, our Lord’s applying so many of these titles afterward to himself, plainly proves his partaking with the Father in the glory peculiar to the divine nature, and incommunicable to any creature.” See Bishop Pearson on the Creed, p. 175.”

89.) Rev 19:13, “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:11-21 Christ, the glorious Head of the church, is described as on a white horse, the emblem of justice and holiness. He has many crowns, for he is King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is arrayed in a vesture dipped in his own blood, by which he purchased his power as Mediator; and in the blood of his enemies, over whom he always prevails. His name is The Word of God; a name none fully knows but himself; only this we know, that this Word was God manifest in the flesh; but his perfections cannot be fully understood by any creature. Angels and saints follow, and are like Christ in their armour of purity and righteousness. The threatenings of the written word he is going to execute on his enemies. The ensigns of his authority are his name; asserting his authority and power, warning the most powerful princes to submit, or they must fall before him. The powers of earth and hell make their utmost effort. These verses declare important events, foretold by the prophets. These persons were not excused because they did what their leaders bade them. How vain will be the plea of many sinners at the great day! We followed our guides; we did as we saw others do! God has given a rule to walk by, in his word; neither the example of the most, nor of the chief, must influence us contrary thereto: if we do as the most do, we must go where the most go, even into the burning lake.”

90.) Rev 21:23, “And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) And the city had no need of the sun . . .—Rather, And the city hath not need of the sun, nor of the moon that they should shine on (or, for) her; for the glory of God enlightened her, and her lamp is the Lamb. The Shechinah is again alluded to. Light is the emblem of knowledge and holiness. God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1John 1:5). Christ the Lamb, came as the Light of the World. Now in the heavenly Jerusalem is the light seen as a lamp that burneth. The imagery is drawn from Isaiah. “The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory” (Isaiah 60:19). No more will there be needed subsidiary or intermediate luminaries. He who makes the righteous to shine like stars, and causes His churches to shine like lights in the world, will be Himself the Light and Sun of His people: they shall see Him as He is. It is again to be noticed that the emblem of the Lamb is used to describe our Lord in this verse, and in the last, as it was also in Revelation 21:14. The memory of Christ’s work on earth is never obliterated: still in the intense splendour and joy of that city of light the remembrance of Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter gives depth and fulness to its joy.”

In Systematic Theology theologians depict God in impersonal terms, the Holy Scriptures describe God in personal terms: God is for me; God is my Helper; God is our refuge and strength, a very ready help

in trouble; God is my salvation, I will trust and not be

afraid; God is mighty but does not reject anyone; God is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; etc.

This is direct revelation of God. The Word of God is pure. The Scriptures provide full knowledge of God without human pontification. Rom 1:19, “because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.”

I believe the whole-hearted study of the Scriptures cited above are more beneficial and blessed in the knowledge of God than the reading of systematic theology by some theologians. In the first place, theologians never thought of comparing God with man. In the second place, theologians pontificated many doctrines, did not know that God is for me, a believer, me, a child of God. If you just memorize the words marked in Red in the Verses presented, you will do well. The blessings of the knowledge of God will be abundant and remain for the rest of your life.

To the top

This is a free website created with hPage.com.