Be it known therefore unto you
Unbelievers and despisers, take this along with you at parting,
and do not say you were never acquainted with it:
that the salvation of God is sent unto the
Gentiles;
meaning the Gospel, which is a publication and declaration of
that salvation, which God contrived from all eternity; made
provision for, and secured in the covenant of grace; which he
appointed, called, and sent Christ to effect, in the fulness of
time; and which he has accomplished, by his obedience,
sufferings, and death; even a full, complete, spiritual, and
eternal salvation, from sin, Satan, the world, the curse of the
law, and eternal death; that that Gospel which proclaims this,
and is the power of God unto it, to them that believe, is sent to
the Gentile world, by God himself, who has ordered his ministers
to turn to them, upon the rejection of it by the Jews:
and [that] they will hear it:
and do understand it and obey it, believe it and profess it: this
the apostle could assert upon his own knowledge, who had preached
it in many nations of the world; and could testify how gladly
they heard it, with what pleasure they received it, how readily
they obeyed it, and how cheerfully they professed it, and how
steadily they held it; though the Jews despised and put it away
from them, judging themselves unworthy of everlasting life: this
the apostle says, reproaching them with their folly, stupidity,
and infidelity; when the Gentiles, which knew not God, received
the Gospel and are saved.
