33 As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
33 As it is written:
This verse quotes Isaiah 8:14 and 28:16 (cf. Ro 10:11) to support Paul’s argument about the failure of Israel to arrive at God’s righteousness for salvation. Quotation from Scripture shows that salvation by grace through faith is nothing new. Paul predicated his argument on the Bible.
“Behold,
“Behold” calls attention to both a problem and an answer. The problem was that Jews stumbled over an obstacle that God had put in their way. They failed to embrace the Messiah and fell flat on their faces.
I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
This quotation is from Isaiah 8:14. The Jews of Paul’s day did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah; they stumbled over His person and work. The more they were confronted by His presence, the more negative they became.
1 Co 1:23, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,
The argument of the chapter to this point is that God has the right or prerogative to offer His kind of salvation, not the kind that man might choose. Justification by faith by the Messiah was the dispute at hand.
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame [dismayed].”
This quotation is from Isaiah 28:16 to prove that belief is the basis of salvation.
“Shame” here is not psychological. The idea is that faith in the Messiah is not ill founded. God will not disgrace believers at the Judgment Seat of Christ, and they will never appear at the Great While Throne Judgment reserved for non-believers.
Ro 10:11, For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
PRINCIPLE:
Pride of a privileged proprietary way of salvation gets in the way of God’s protocol for salvation.
APPLICATION:
Pride ultimately blinds us to personally held truth. We want to depend on self because of our sense of self-sufficiency. However, Christ-sufficiency is God’s way of salvation. Implacable and stubborn personal bias is a deadly thing.
Those that take offense at Christ as the only way for salvation do so out of a faith issue, not a religious concern.
Question, is there an AP that I can put on my phone to do the verse by verse commentary when studying?
Carol, there is no app for versebyversecommentary.com Thanks for asking. I inquired about it but apps require constant updating which is beyond the resources of this ministry.