The Acts of the Apostles (1911) — PDF Scan 382

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376 THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how mnch more their fnlness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office : if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the deadf It was God's purpose that His grace should be revealed among the Gentiles as well as among the Israelites. This had been plainly outlined in Old Testament prophecies. The- apostle uses some of these prophecies in his argument. ''Platli not the potter power over the clay,'' he inquires, ^^of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles f As He saith also in Osee, I will call them My people, which were not My people; and her beloved, which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, \^e are not My people; there shall they be called the children of the living God. ' ' ^ Notwithstanding Israel's failure as a nation, there remained among them a goodly remnant of such as should be saved. At the time of the Sav- ^ See Hosea 1:10.