Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was cast into the sea that caught all kinds of fish.  When it was full, they pulled it ashore, sat down, and put the good (καλὰ, a form of καλός) fish into containers and threw the bad (σαπρὰ, a form of σαπρός) away.  It will be this way at the end of the age.  Angels will come and separate the evil (πονηροὺς, a form of πονηρός) from the righteous (δικαίων, a form of δίκαιος) and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.^[1]  This parable about the kingdom of heaven focused commentators’ attentions on the church as opposed to the world at large.

“In the visible church,” Matthew Henry (1662-1714) wrote, “there is a deal of trash and rubbish, dirt and weeds and vermin, as well as fish….Hypocrites and true Christians shall be parted.”^[2]  John Gill (1697-1771) added, “as many as [the angels] find to have a good work of grace wrought and finished in their souls, they will gather into Christ’s barn, into the everlasting habitations, the mansions in Christ’s Father’s house, he is gone to prepare: but as for the bad, who shall appear to be destitute of the grace of God, and righteousness of Christ, notwithstanding their profession of religion, they shall be rejected, as good for nothing, and shall be cast into the lake which burns with fire and brimstone.”^[3]

“Our Saviour never fails to keep before our minds the great truth that there is to be a day of judgment,” wrote Albert Barnes (1798-1870), “and that there will be a separation of the good and the evil.  He came to preach salvation; and it is a remarkable fact, also, that the most fearful accounts of hell and of the sufferings of the damned, in the Scriptures, are from his lips.  How does this agree with the representations of those who say that all will be saved?”^[4]

On the meaning of σαπρὰ (a form of σαπρός) the Pulpit Commentary (1884) reads: ^[5]

Not to be pressed to mean “corrupt, dead fish, in a state of rottenness” (Goebel), for surely fishermen seldom get many of these, but simply the worthless, the unfit for use.  This would include the legally unclean.  Tristram writes,” The greater number of the species taken on the lake are rejected by the fishermen, and I have sat with them on the gunwale while they went through their net, and threw out into the sea those that were too small for the market or were considered unclean” (‘Nat. Hist. of Bible,’ p. 291, edit. 1889)

Watch out for false prophets, Jesus said, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves.  You will recognize them by their fruit (καρπῶν, a form of καρπός).^[6]  I can be fairly specific here: Does the would-be prophet demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,^[7] the fruit (καρπὸς) of the Spirit?  Or does the would-be prophet practice (πράσσοντες, a form of πράσσω) sexual immorality (πορνεία), impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing,^[8] the works (ἔργα, a form of ἔργον) of the flesh?

Jesus continued, Grapes are not gathered from thorns or figs from thistles, are they?  In the same way, every good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree bears good (καλοὺς, another form of καλός) fruit, but the bad (σαπρὸν, another form of σαπρός) tree bears bad (πονηροὺς, a form of πονηρός) fruit.^[9]  I think it worth mentioning that the word translated bears is ποιεῖ (a form of ποιέω) in both occurrences.  A good (ἀγαθὸν, a form of ἀγαθός) tree is not able to bear bad (πονηροὺς, a form of πονηρός) fruit, Jesus continued, nor a bad (σαπρὸν, another form of σαπρός) tree to bear good (καλοὺς, another form of καλός) fruit.^[10]

Make a tree good (καλὸν, another form of καλός) and its fruit will be good (καλὸν, another form of καλός), Jesus said to religious people, or make a tree bad (σαπρὸν, another form of σαπρός) and its fruit will be bad (σαπρὸν, another form of σαπρός), for a tree is known by its fruit.^[11]  I’ve written elsewhere how the religious mind reverses this teaching.  Every tree that does not bear good (καλὸν, another form of καλός) fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire, Jesus continued his warning about false prophets.  So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.^[12]

This leads me inevitably to the old and new human (ἄνθρωπον, a form of ἄνθρωπος in Greek; I see no reason to specify gender).  You were taught with reference to your former way of life to lay aside the old man who is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and to put on (ἐνδύσασθαι, a form of ἐνδύω) the new man who has been created in God’s image – in righteousness and holiness that comes from truth.^[13]  The word ἐνδύσασθαι means to sink into.  In movies the femme fatale slips into something more comfortable.  To put on the new human is considerably more macho.

I am working class all the way, rarely wear a suit.  If I do, it is to fit in, to impress or to intimidate.  It is a put-on in every sense of the word.  “Fake it until you make it” works in those situations when “you can fool all of the people some of the time.”  It doesn’t work with the new human because no creature is hidden from God, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.^[14]  To put on the new human I must believe that God has prepared it beforehand, ready and able to respond as He would have me respond.

This new human is the one who has been fathered by God: We know that everyone fathered by God does not sin, but God protects the one he has fathered, and the evil one cannot touch him.^[15]  Everyone who has been fathered by God does not practice sin, because God’s seed resides in him, and thus he is not able to sin, because he has been fathered by God.^[16]  This new human is the one who is led by the Spirit: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.^[17]  The old human is being corrupted in accordance with deceitful desires.  It gets progressively worse, never better.

This was vividly portrayed for me—in me—the Saturday before Mother’s day.  I had a rare opportunity to be home.  My eighty-four-year-old mother asked me to finish trimming her bushes.  Now, of course, she had a particular way it needed to be done.  As I untangled the long extension cord that powered the trimmer I recalled that handling that cord caused her fall last summer.  She broke her hip and lay on the driveway for ten hours, parched and burnt in the sun and then shivering in the rain, until my sister found her.  But the whole time I trimmed those bushes the old human did nothing but bitch, moan and complain about her.

It didn’t affect my behavior.  (I trimmed her bushes to the best of my ability.  No, it wasn’t topiary by any stretch of the imagination.)  The old human didn’t affect my attitude toward her.  (I called and asked her to make sure.)  But I can hardly wait to be rid of the foul thing!  So when I hear—Angels will come and separate the evil from [ἐκ μέσου; literally “out from the midst of”] the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—I wonder if that describes my release from this sin condemned in my flesh.  And I’m confounded that so many pastors thought instead of members of their congregations.  Why?

Do we differ in our understanding of the fruit of the Spirit?

“And here we may observe that as sin is called the work of the flesh,” Matthew Henry wrote, “because the flesh, or corrupt nature, is the principle that moves and excites men to it, so grace is said to be the fruit of the Spirit, because it wholly proceeds from the Spirit, as the fruit does from the root…”  John Gill was a bit more equivocal:  “Not of nature or man’s free will, as corrupted by sin, for no good fruit springs from thence; but either of the internal principle of grace, called the Spirit, Galatians 5:17 or rather of the Holy Spirit, as the Ethiopic version reads it; the graces of which are called ‘fruit’, and not ‘works’, as the actions of the flesh are; because they are owing to divine influence, efficacy, and bounty…”

Albert Barnes was explicit: “That which the Holy Spirit produces…Paul does not trace them to our own hearts, even when renewed.  He says that they are to be regarded as the proper result of the Spirit‘s operations on the soul.”  In the Pulpit Commentary the fruit of the Spirit was rationalized as “dispositions and states of mind,” and demeaned somewhat as “states of mind or habits of feeling [rather] than concrete actions,” but are still acknowledged as produced by the Holy Spirit: “[Paul] reckons up the dispositions and states of mind which it was the office of the Holy Spirit to produce in them.”

Do we differ in our understanding of the necessity and efficacy of God’s mercy?

“It is not of him that willeth….Applying this general rule to the particular case that Paul has before him,” wrote Matthew Henry, “the reason why the unworthy, undeserving, ill-deserving Gentiles are called, and grafted into the church, while the greatest part of the Jews are left to perish in unbelief, is not because those Gentiles were better deserving or better disposed for such a favour, but because of God’s free grace that made that difference.  The Gentiles did neither will it, nor run for it, for they sat in darkness, Matthew 4:16.  In darkness, therefore not willing what they knew not sitting in darkness, a contented posture, therefore not running to meet it, but anticipated with these invaluable blessings of goodness.  Such is the method of God’s grace towards all that partake of it, for he is found of those that sought him not (Isaiah 65:1) in this preventing, effectual, distinguishing grace, he acts as a benefactor, whose grace is his own.  Our eye therefore must not be evil because his is good…”

John Gill wrote: “but of God that sheweth mercy; in a free sovereign way and manner, which he is not obliged to by anything the creature wills or works; he is at full liberty, notwithstanding whatever they will or do, to give his grace and mercy, when, where, and to whom he pleases; and therefore to give it to some, and deny it to others, can never be accounted an act of injustice, since he is not bound to give it to any.”

Albert Barnes wrote: “But of God that showeth mercy – Salvation in its beginning, its progress, and its close, is of him.  He has a right, therefore, to bestow it when and where he pleases.  All our mercies flow from his mere love and compassion, and not from our deserts.  The essential idea here is, that God is the original fountain of all the blessings of salvation.”  The Pulpit Commentary doesn’t comment on Romans 9:16 directly but reads: “The argument (thus introduced by γὰρ) requires two understood premisses—that God cannot possibly be unrighteous, and that what he himself said to Moses must be true.”

Do we differ on who may be shown mercy?

Matthew Henry didn’t comment directly on Romans 11:32: “He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.  Christ’s errand into the world was to turn away ungodliness, to turn away the guilt by the purchase of pardoning mercy, and to turn away the power by the pouring out of renewing grace, to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21), to separate between us and our sins, that iniquity might not be our ruin, and that it might not be our ruler.  Especially to turn it away from Jacob, which is that for the sake of which he quotes the text, as a proof of the great kindness God intended for the seed of Jacob.”

So far so good.  Mr. Henry quoted Paul quoting Isaiah:

Then Mr. Henry quoted the same verse in Isaiah from the Masoretic text: “In Isaiah it is, The Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto those that turn from transgression in Jacob, which shown who in Zion were to have a share in and to reap benefit by the deliverance promised, those and those only that leave their sins and turn to God to them Christ comes as a Redeemer, but as an avenger to those that persist in impenitence.”  Then he proposed an unbelievable solution: “Putting both these readings together, we learn that none have an interest in Christ but those that turn from their sins, nor can any turn from their sins but by the strength of the grace of Christ.”

In other words, no one can be saved since God will only show mercy to those who turn from their sins and none can turn from their sins apart from God’s mercy.  With a Gospel message like that we need not wonder at the “deal of trash and rubbish, dirt and weeds and vermin” in his church.  That’s not quite fair.  Mr. Henry didn’t specify whether the “deal of trash and rubbish, dirt and weeds and vermin” were members of his own congregation or another.  According to an online bio “he began his regular ministry as non-conformist pastor of a Presbyterian congregation…”  Perhaps he wrote thus of Anglicans or Catholics.  But I think I understand why he had no comment to make on Paul’s declaration: For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.^[18]

“Jews, though for the present unbelievers,” John Gill wrote, “yet it may be thought, that through the mercy the Gentiles had received, they would some time or other be provoked to seek for, and so obtain the same mercy, Romans 11:31, and the rather this may be given into and received, not only because they both have been in a state of unbelief, but the end and design of God in concluding them in it, were to have mercy on each of them, Romans 11:32…” I may be mistaken but I take Mr. Gill to mean that God will have mercy on some Jews and Gentiles (those who turn from their sins perhaps?).  Mr. Gill continued, “which dispensation of God both to one and to the other by turns, in different ways, was so amazing and unaccountable to the apostle, that he breaks out into admiration at the wisdom and knowledge of God…”

“Mercy is favor shown to the undeserving,” wrote Albert Barnes.  “It could not have been shown to the Jews and the Gentiles unless it was before proved that they were guilty.  For this purpose proof was furnished that they were all in unbelief….Thus, all people were on a level; and thus all might be admitted to heaven without any invidious distinctions, or any dealings that were not in accordance with mercy and love….It does not prove that all people will be saved; but that those who are saved shall be alike saved by the mercy of God; and that He intends to confer salvation on Jews and Gentiles on the same terms.”  I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.  So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. ^[19]

“Thus the latter expression [e.g., Romans 11:32] is not in itself adducible in support of the doctrine of universalism,” the Pulpit Commentary reads.  “Certainly the prospect of a universal triumph of the gospel before the end rises here before the apostle in prophetic vision; and it may be that it carries with it to his mind further glories of eternal salvation for all, casting their rays backward over all past ages, so as to inspire an unbounded hope.  Such a hope, which seems elsewhere intimated (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24-29; Ephesians 1:9, Ephesians 1:10, Ephesians 1:20-23; Colossians 1:15-20) would justify the glowing rhapsody of admiration and thanksgiving that follows more fully than if we supposed the apostle to contemplate still the eternal perdition of the multitudes who in all the ages have not on earth found mercy.”

Here the Pulpit Commentary referred to Romans 11:32-36 (NET):

For God has consigned all people to disobedience so that he may show mercy to them all.  Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways!  For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?  Or who has first given to God, that God needs to repay him?  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever!  Amen.

I’ll pick this up again later.