Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; As the vine tree among
the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I
give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Ezekiel 15:6)
That this discourse might profit us in these days. We must
perceive, in the first place, that we are superior to the whole world, through
God’s gratuitous pity: but naturally we have nothing of our own in which to
boast. But if we carry ourselves haughtily, through reliance on God’s gifts,
this arrogance would be sacrilege: for we snatch away from God his own praise,
and clothe ourselves, as it were, in his spoils.
But Paul, when he speaks of the Jews, shortly, but clearly,
defines both sides: Do we excel? says he—(for he there makes himself one with
the people)—Do we excel the Gentiles? says he, (Romans 3:1); by no means: for
Scripture denounces us all to be sinners—all to be, accursed. Since, therefore,
we are children of wrath, he says, there is nothing which we can claim to
ourselves over the profane Gentiles.
After he has so prostrated all the pride of his own nation,
he repeats again—What? Are we not superior to others? Yea, we excel in every
way. For the adoption, and the worship, and the law of God, and the covenant,
confer upon us remarkable superiority, and such as we find nothing like it in
the whole world. How do those things agree?
That the Jews excel, and are to be preferred to others, and
yet that they excel in nothing! namely, since they have nothing in themselves
to cause them to despise the Gentiles, or boast themselves superior; hence
their excellence is not in themselves but in God. (Commentaries)
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