them above: =What if He bore,= (the tense throws us forward into eternity, to look back thence on His ways in time,) =in much longsuffering, vessels of wrath, adjusted for ruin?= And acted otherwise with others, [Sidenote: Ver. 23.] =that He might evidence the wealth of His glory,= the resources of His inmost Character, poured =upon vessels of pity, which He prepared in advance for glory,= by the processes of justifying and hallowing grace-- [Sidenote: Ver. 24.] =whom in fact (καὶ) He called,= effectually, in their conversion, =even us, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles?= For while the lineal Israel, with its privilege and its apparent failure, is here first in view, there lies behind it the phenomenon of "the Israel of God," the heaven-born heirs of the Fathers, a race not of blood but of the Spirit. The great Promise, all the while, had set towards _that_ Israel as its final scope; and now he gives proof from the Prophets that this intention was at least half revealed all along the line of revelation. [Sidenote: Ver. 25.] =As actually (καὶ) in our (τῷ) Hosea= (ii. 23, Heb., 25) in the book we know as such, =He says, "I will call what= was =not My people, My people; and the not-beloved one, beloved.[156]= [Sidenote: Ver. 26.] =And= (another Hosean oracle,[157] in line with the first) =it shall be, in the place where it was said to them, Not My people are ye, there they shall be called sons of the living God."= In both places the first incidence of the words is on the restoration of the Ten Tribes to covenant blessings. But the Apostle, in the Spirit, sees an ultimate and satisfying reference to a vaster application of the same principle; the bringing of the rebelling and banished ones of all mankind into covenant and blessing. Meanwhile the Prophets who foretell that great ingathering indicate with equal solemnity the spiritual failure of all but a fraction of the lineal heirs of promise. [Sidenote: Ver. 27.] =But Isaiah cries over[158] Israel, "If the number of the sons of Israel should be as the sand of the sea, the remnant= only =shall be saved;= [Sidenote: Ver. 28.] =for as one who completes and cuts short will the Lord do His work (λόγον, דבר) upon the earth."[159]= Here again is a first and second incidence of the prophecy. In every stage of the history of Sin and Redemption the Apostle, in the Spirit, sees an embryo of the great Development. So, in the wofully limited numbers of the Exiles who returned from the old captivity he sees an embodied prophecy of the fewness of the sons of Israel who shall return from the exile of incredulity to their true Messiah. [Sidenote: Ver. 29.] =And as Isaiah= (i. 9) =has foretold (προείρηκεν),= so it is; ="Unless the Lord of Hosts (Σαβαώθ, צבאות) had left us a seed,[160] like Sodom we had become, and to Gomorrah we had been resembled."=