(I Cor. 1: 18) and Christ risen (Rom. 1: 4) make the gospel the power of God unto

Between the statement concerning the gospel and its revelation of righteousness the

apostle interposes a remark concerning the priority of the Jew. To say that he paused at

this important point to remark the perfectly obvious fact that the Jew had the gospel

preached to him before the Gentile is scarcely complimentary to his sense of fitness, to

say nothing of its trifling character. Are we also to believe that the Jew will be judged at

a special judgment earlier than that of the rest of mankind? (Rom. 2: 9). The words of

Rom. 2: 16 do not countenance such an idea. "To the Jew first" is a recognition of

Israel's dispensational position, and Paul's custom of going first to the synagogue in a

town was a recognition of this priority. The apostle was called to serve among the

Gentiles, and he magnified his office, yet his heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel

was that they might be saved (Rom. 10: 1).

Now Rom. 1: 17 shows that salvation is essentially connected with righteousness by

faith. Rom. 10: reveals that the failure of Israel to obtain salvation was because they were

ignorant of God's provision, and sought a righteousness of their own by works of law.

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, and they had

rejected Him.  Believing the fact of the resurrection of Christ and believing unto

righteousness are parallel expressions in Rom. 10: 9, 10. Salvation came to the Jew first,

but they failed, and:--

Israel were not provoked either to jealousy or to emulation, they became hard and deaf

and blind. In Acts 28: we see the rejection of Israel, and that the salvation of God

was sent unto the Gentiles, as revealed in the prison epistles.

While the believing Gentile was blessed with faithful Abraham, and as a wild olive

graft partook of the root and fatness of the olive tree, it is a mistake to believe that the

covenant with Abraham was really put into force. The Gentile participation in the

covenant with Abraham awaits the salvation of the Jew (Gal. 3: 13, 14), and the calling

out of nature's darkness of a company of Gentiles in the time of Israel's probation during

the Acts was with the object of provoking Israel to jealousy and making them wake up to

the call of the gospel.  They did not respond, and their day passed.  The present

dispensation of the mystery is not the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant; that will

begin to operate when Israel are saved and become the kingdom of priests unto God. The

fact that the olive tree was cut down to the ground, together with its Jewish and Gentile

branches, shows that the Abrahamic covenant could not have been in operation, for that

will never fail so miserably. After this dispensational digression we come to the great

statement of verse 17:--