Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter LXXVIII
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter
LXXVIII.
The Jew continues: “Did Jesus come
into the world for this purpose, that we should not believe
him?” To which we immediately answer, that He did not come
with the object of producing incredulity among the Jews; but knowing
beforehand that such would be the result, He foretold it, and made use
of their unbelief for the calling of the Gentiles. For through
their sin salvation came to the Gentiles, respecting whom the Christ
who speaks in the prophecies says, “A people whom I did not know
became subject to Me: they were obedient to the hearing of My
ear;”3429
and, “I was
found of them who sought Me not; I became manifest to those
who inquired not after
Me.”3430
It is
certain, moreover, that the Jews were punished even in this present
life, after treating Jesus in the manner in which they did. And
let the Jews assert what they will when we charge them with guilt, and
say, “Is not the providence and goodness of God most wonderfully
displayed in your punishment, and in your being deprived of Jerusalem,
and of the sanctuary, and of your splendid worship?” For
whatever they may say in reply with respect to the providence of God,
we shall be able more effectually to answer it by remarking, that the
providence of God was wonderfully manifested in using the transgression
of that people for the purpose of calling into the kingdom of God,
through Jesus Christ, those from among the Gentiles who were strangers
to the covenant and aliens to the promises. And these things were
foretold by the prophets, who said that, on account of the
transgressions of the Hebrew nation, God would make choice, not of a
nation, but of individuals chosen from all lands;3431
| 3431 οὐχὶ ἔθνος,
ἀλλὰ λογάδας
πανταχόθεν. | and, having selected the foolish things of
the world, would cause an ignorant nation to become acquainted with the
divine teaching, the kingdom of God being taken from the one and given
to the other. And out of a larger number it is sufficient on the
present occasion to adduce the prediction from the song in Deuteronomy
regarding the calling of the Gentiles, which is as follows, being
spoken in the person of the Lord: “They have moved Me to
jealousy with those who are not gods; they have provoked Me to anger
with their idols: and I will move them to jealousy with those who
are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish
nation.”3432
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
