Romans 9:3

As if he had said, I could wish to suffer in their stead; yea, to be an anathema from Christ in their place. In how high a sense he wished this, who can tell, unless himself had been asked and had resolved the question? Certainly he did not then consider himself at all, but only others and the glory of God.

Because when he sums up his argument in the close of the chapter, he has not one word, or the least intimation, about it. In Christ - This seems to imply an appeal to him. In the Holy Ghost - Through his grace.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ,....

For I could wish ... - This passage has been greatly controverted. Some have proposed to translate it, “I did wish,” as referring to a former state, when he renounced Christ, and sought to advance the interests of the nation by opposing and defying him. But to this interpretation there are insuperable objections. (1) The object of the apostle is not to state his former feelings, but his present attachment to his countrymen, and willingness to suffer for them.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for--"in behalf of" my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh--In proportion as he felt himself severed from his nation, he seems to have realized all the more vividly their natural relationship.

WHAT an intense man Paul was! Once convince him and his whole nature moved in the direction which he judged to be right. He was whole-hearted when he persecuted the Church of God and he was equally whole-hearted when, afterwards, he labored with all his might to build up the Church which he had sought to destroy! I would to God we were all as thorough-going in the service of our Lord!

WHAT an intense man Paul was! Once convince him and his whole nature moved in the direction which he judged to be right. He was whole-hearted when he persecuted the Church of God and he was equally whole-hearted when, afterwards, he labored with all his might to build up the Church which he had sought to destroy! I would to God we were all as thorough-going in the service of our Lord! The pity is that so many professing Christians appear to have no heart, while others borrow a heart for some occasions but do not seem to keep one permanently beating in their own bosoms. O for a warm, engine-like heart all consecrated and forever pulsing mightily! What a change was worked in Saul of Tarsus, that he who was so ardent a persecutor should become so fervent a preacher! His conversion is one of the proofs of the Divinity of Christianity. The study of the story of Paul was the means of the conversion of Lord Lyttleton who read it with the design of exposing it as a hoax. His friend, Gilbert West, was, at the same time, considering the resurrection of our Lord in a similar spirit and, happily, with the same result—the friends met to unite in the joint conviction that the Bible is the Word of God! Dr. Johnson says of Lyttleton's, "Observations upon the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul," "it is a treatise to which infidelity has never been able to fabricate a specious answer." Consider for a moment the renowned conversion of Paul. It was singularly Providential that just at that period when the Church needed such a man, the Apostle with his remarkable education, his noble purpose and his acquaintance with Jewish and Greek literature, should have been called out from the world and placed in the very forefront of the battle for Christ! Truly might he say that he was not a whit behind the very chief of the Apostles, though in his humility, he felt himself to be nothing.

For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ - This and the two preceding verses are thus paraphrased by Dr. Taylor: I am so far from insisting on the doctrine (of the rejection of the Jews) out of any ill-will to my countrymen, that I solemnly declare, in the sincerity of my heart, without the least fiction or dissimulation - and herein I have the testimony of my own conscience, enlightened and directed by the Spirit of God - that I am so far from taking pleasure in the rejection of the Jewish nation, that, contrariwise, it gives me continual pain and uneasiness, insomuch that, as Moses formerly (when God proposed to cut them off, and in their stead to make him a great nation, Exo 32:10) begged that he himself should rather die than that the children of Israel should be destroyed, Exo 32:32, so I could even wish that the exclusion from the visible Church, which will happen to the Jewish nation, might fall to my own share, if hereby they might be kept in it and to this I am inclined by natural affection, for the Jews are my dear brethren and kindred. Very few passages in the New Testament have puzzled critics and commentators more than this. Every person saw the perfect absurdity of understanding it in a literal sense, as no man in his right mind could wish himself eternally damned in order to save another, or to save even the whole world. And the supposition that such an effect could be produced by such a sacrifice, was equally absurd and monstrous. Therefore various translations have been made of the place, and different solutions offered. Mr. […]