ROMANS CHAPTER 7 - 11

ROMANS 7

1 Do you not know, brothers, for I
Speak to them who know the law’s sky,
How the law has power over man
As long as he lives under span?
2 For a wife’s bound to husband by
Law as long as he lives to sigh,
But if the husband comes to die,
She’s free from the law of her man.
3 So then if, while her husband’s span
Of life remains, she goes to get
Another husband for a pet,
She shall be called adulteress:
But if her husband’s in the dress
Of the dead, she’s free from that law;
So that she is not in the claw
Of her adultery, though she
Be married to another man.
4 And so, my brothers, in degree
You’re also dead to the law’s pan
By the body of Christ; so you
Should be married to each in view,
To him who is raised from the dead,
So we should bring forth God’s fruit spread.

I wonder Paul takes marriage in his sight
As allegory of the deed that’s right.
He does not mention for himself a wife,
But glories more in his own single life.
He thinks solution of all problems sit
In getting married to the right and fit,
But does not realize that life’s begun
In work and sorrows in the wedding’s sun.
And yet, Beloved, my marriage to Your son
Raised from the dead without sin in the run
Brings fruit perhaps as web of life is spun.
I see the leading of divine plan in
The past and so I know that it must win
Before the onslaught of a braver kin.

5 For when we were still in the flesh,
The motions of sins by law fresh,
Worked in our members to bring out
Fruit unto death and without doubt.
6 But now we are saved from the law,
Which is dead that held us in claw,
So we should serve in spirit new,
Not in the old letter of shrew.
7 What shall we say then? Is law sin?
May God forbid. No, in the din
I should never have known of sin,
But by the law; for I would not
Have known lust except the law sought
To say not to covet in plot.
8 But sin took the commandment’s chance,
And call all things in me to dance,
For without law sin’s a dead prance.
9 I was alive without law once:
But when the commandment in stunts
Came, sin revived, I died a dunce.
10 And the commandment once ordained
To life, I found to be death gained.

The human spirit takes the law in place
Of the divine in guidance for a trace,
Abuses it to conform to the race
And expectation of his Roman grace.
So Pharisee and Sadducee appeared
To conform to the situation geared,
Thinking to save the people from the feared.
They praised the law till Caesar was assured
No king messiah threatened his health cured,
And all were happy to obey the law
Rather than to bow to justice in paw.
Beloved, today the opposite in swine
Makes Jesus king of women, song and wine,
His flesh a banquet where the lawless dine.

Sin took advantage of command,
Told me lies and killed out of hand.
12 The law in fact is holy and
The commandment holy and grand
In justice and in goodness’ stand.
13 Was then the good made death to me?
May God forbid. But sin to see
As sin working its death in me
By what is good, that sin should be
By the commandment might become
Exceeding sinful in its rum.
14 For we know law is spiritual:
But I’m carnal, sold under wall
Of sin. 15 For the things that I do
I don’t allow; the good in view
That I would do, that I don’t do;
But what I hate I come to rue.
16 If then I do what I would not,
I admit the law’s a good plot.
17 So it’s no longer I who work,
But the sin in me does not shirk.

The devil made me do it’s no excuse,
If that is what Paul speaks here in abuse.
The cosmic warfare between right and wrong
Has been the theme of Persian dance and song
For centuries, and yet if it runs long
Within the human soul in microchip
Or microcosmos in my floundered ship,
I trust that where I drift beneath Your care
Will be the haven of a better share.
Beloved, the things I want to do in time
I tend to achieve in both prose and rhyme.
Perhaps the hopelessness of Paul in clime
Is higher standards in the things to bear.
Let me not set a goal beyond my lair.

18 For I know in me, in my flesh
There is no good thing, nothing fresh,
For the desire is with me still,
But how to do the good I will
I do not find beneath the hill.
19 For the good that I want to do
I do not do; but evil things
That I don’t want to do for stings
Are just what I do in my wings.
20 Now if I do what I would not,
It’s no more I who work the plot,
But sin that dwells in me for slot.
21 So I find a law, that, when I
Would do good, evil comes in sly.
22 For I delight in law of God
After the inward man in pod:
23 But I see another law in
My members, warring in its sin
Against the law of my mind, and
Bringing me into captive stand
To the law of sin which is in
My members causing such a din.
24 O wretched man that I’ve become!
Who shall deliver me in sum
From this death of body and rum?
25 But I thank God through Jesus Christ
Our Lord. So then with mind sufficed
I myself serve the law of God;
But with flesh sin’s law on the sod.

The faces turn to pots when I know that
Paul makes here no excuse for sin out flat,
But shows it foreign to both life and song,
Simply because no man wants to do wrong.
There is no true depravity, says he,
But if the flesh is weak to join the spree,
Desire for good is still within the wee.
That may not be enough to turn the wheel
From wrong to right, and head upon the heel,
But does suffice to show a better law
Is still stuck in the man and woman’s craw.
Beloved, I flee to You from the warfare
In cosmos and in heart that I may bare,
And find the path to life becomes my share.

ROMANS 8

1 Therefore now no judgement falls on
Those in Christ Jesus, who from dawn
Do not act as flesh demands but
As spirit. 2 For the law unshut
Of spirit of life in the Christ
Jesus has made me free enticed
From the law of sin and its death.

Beloved, all men and women too are set
Beneath some law, the law that all have met
In what the neighbour says or what the state,
Or even what the biologic fate
Of everyone would insist on to mate.
Beloved, law follows all determinate
Even in law to breathe air and to wait.
Give me the law to live freely without
The weight of following the crowd about,
The weight of doing only what the need
Of food and drink and drug come up to deed.
The Christ who leads me to the Decalogue
Shows path of freedom from the pond and frog.
I’m free to choose to do what I would flout.

3 For what law could not do in that
It was weak because where flesh sat,
God sending His own Son to be
In likeness of sinful flesh wee,
And as for sin, condemned freely
Sin in the flesh, 4 that righteousness
Of the law might be fulfilled dress
In us who act not after flesh
But after spirit out of mesh.
5 For those who are according to
Flesh consider fleshly things in due,
But those who are according to
Spirit the spiritual view.

Indeed, I read the ten commandments here
With spirit’s eye, and find that what I fear
Is but deluded pride, opinion of
Those who seek power instead of divine love.
The flesh reads “Thou shalt not” and sees the bands
Of tyranny upon the silver sands.
The spirit reads the same words to find there
The promise of a life that’s fine and fair
And free from peer pressure and body wear.
The flesh sees the law as a foul restraint,
Under which one may live but always faint.
The spirit sees it guardian of the free
Who come up out of the Egyptian spree.
Beloved, I bow to You and Your decree.

6 For to be fleshly minded’s death,
But spiritually minded’s breath
Of life and peace. 7 Because the mind
Of flesh is enmity to find
Against God, for it is not set
Beneath the law of God, nor yet
Can it be whenever it is met.
8 So those who act by flesh cannot
Please God with anything they’ve wrought.
9 But you do not bide by the flesh
But by the spirit and as fresh,
If so be God’s spirit keeps house
Among you. Now if any louse
Does not have Christ’s spirit, he’s not
One of his. 10 And if Christ’s among
You, then the body’s dead by sin,
But the spirit is a life sung
Because of righteousness you’re in.

I’ve seen the body forget self a day
When art or concert comes around to sway
The senses and to capture one for pay.
I’ve seen the body sunk into small death
When slumber creeps over the sleeper’s breath
Forgetful of every known shibboleth.
I’ve seen the body turn to deeds as fine
And great as ever, when a hero’s wine
Took over mind and captured the soul’s shrine.
Beloved, I find in You my rapture and
My rest and loyalty, and so I stand
In the throng of Your sent one’s loving band.
Invisible as You Yourself Your Christ
Draws from my heart a love emparadised.

11 But if the spirit of the One
Who raised up Jesus from those done
To death is keeping house among
You, then the raising up that’s sung
Of Christ from among dead ones shall
Also making you lively in mall
Of mortal bodies through the pal
Of his spirit in your corral.

Some bear witness to seeing a Christ form
Torn from the garden, and under the storm
Of hate dressed in mock royal clothes and crown
To traipse under a cross about the town.
Some bear witness to seeing Christ nailed down
And thrust between the darkened sky a clown
Of suffering. Some came to the grave to seek
Christ dead among the silent and the meek.
Beloved, he was not there, since he was raised
By prayers miraculous among the praised.
He left the dead to dry bones and the sod
And went to stand my You, his Lord and God.
Beloved, may the same prayer of power raise me
To be one with You too eternally.

12 That’s why, brothers, we’re debtors all,
Not to the flesh live to its call.
13 For if you live according to
Flesh, you must die, but then if you
By spirit put fleshly deeds to
Death, then you’ll live by the life due.
14 Whoever then are led by that
Spirit of God, then where they sat
They are the sons of God for that.
15 For you did not receive again
Spirit of bondage feared in vain,
But you’ve received the spirit of
Adoption, by which we in love
Shout “Father, Father!” 16 And itself
The spirit bears witness to pelf
In our spirit that we are none
But children of God who is One.

Some deny that he was the son of God,
And truly he is not a pea from pod.
What makes him Your child’s not the flesh and blood
But spirit that raises above the mud
To works the Decalogue, once shadow bone,
Raised to life in his hand before Your throne.
As spirit vivifies Your word and promise,
I too turn from being a doubting Thomas
To call You Father as well as Beloved.
Like Christ, all who do so return well-gloved
As sons and daughters rather than the slaves
Of flesh that goes down to the silent graves.
Beloved, that’s why so many words rise up
To fill with praise my alabaster cup.

17 And if children, then heirs indeed
Of God, joint-heirs with Christ His seed,
So if we suffer with his need,
We may also be glorified
Together standing by his side.

Some bear witness that You are made in sum
Of three by Christ and Spirit once more come.
But surely the joint-heirs as well come take
Their share in glory and in well-done steak.
There is indeed a Trinity of three,
I’ll not cry that down in some blasphemy,
But only say that no limits can be
On Your shared grace in our divinity.
As Christ is heir of God, so I shall be
Who flee to Your law of grace’ liberty.
And that makes four, but then quadernity
Is multiplied thousands by Your decree.
Beloved, three in One, yes, but much, much more,
All may share in the divine I in store.

18 For I reckon this present time
Of sufferings are not worth the climb
Compared with the glory which shall
Be revealed in us capital.
19 For the earnest expectations
Of the creature waits for the stuns
Of the appearing of God’s sons.
20 Then the creature was set beneath
The authority of the thief
Not by its will but by the One
Who also in hope set the sun,
21 Because the creature itself shall
Be delivered from arsenal
Of corruption’s bondage and thrall
Into glorious freedom’s hall
Of God’s children at trumpet call.

The spirit truly wins the day as it
Sees through the veils to a new glory fit.
Truly You are the One who wove and knit
The screen of neant on eternity
And cast the shadows that move in the play
That calls creation from the night and day.
Yet spirit is ephemeral to touch
And stone and steel speak to the soul as much.
The spirit that leads in the vital go
To life eternally within the show
Of Decalogue, leads on above to know
Deliverance from death’s seed in the bone
And blood to find life here before Your throne.
Beloved, I wait and prosper, I shall grow.

22 For we know that all of creation
Groans and labours in the pangs’ ration
Together until this summation.
23 And not only, but ourselves too,
Who have the first-fruits of things due
From the spirit, even ourselves
We groan with as upon the shelves
Waiting to the adoption and
Redemption of body and hand.
24 For we are saved by hope, but hope
That is seen is not hope but pope,
For what a person sees, why does
He still hope for it in the buzz?

All things created here below the sun
Groan for deliverance from weight like tonne
Of principalities seen on the run.
The State may be just an idea, the Church
An empty dream to leave one in the lurch,
But to depend on pope or priest or king
Is to release faith and hope for the thing.
All things deceive, all things betray, and all
That sit on golden thrones have missed Your call.
Though all hold sceptre by Your sovereign will,
And wield the sword for punishment wrecked still
Upon the unjust when they fit the bill,
Their names for usurpation must arise
When You, Beloved, tear down the columned skies.

25 But if we hope for what we don’t
See, we wait for it patiently.
26 In the same way the spirit too
Helps our weaknesses, not a few,
For we do not know how we ought
To pray for what cannot be bought,
Then the spirit itself gives voice
For us with groanings without choice
Not to be spoken to rejoice.
27 And He who searches hearts knows what
Is the mind of the spirit cut,
Because he speaks up for the saints
According to God’s own complaints.

Indeed, the human heart cannot invent
The truth obvious, visible, and sent
Once heard on Sinai to invoke, present
What things the spirit groans within the breast.
Indeed, humankind cannot find its rest
Outside the spirit’s leading to the stone
Whereon You once wrote love letters in loan.
Your promises remain the spirit’s voice,
And in their cantillation soul finds choice,
A door to break determination’s zeal
And the bands and bars of what humans feel.
The spirit speaks within always those words
That flew from Sinai like black signal birds
Turned iridescent with lightning’s appeal.

28 We know God makes all things turn out
Good for those who love God devout,
To those who are called by His will
To His purpose and to fulfil.
29 For those he knew beforehand He
Also beforehand planned to be
Conformed to His Son’s likeness, that
He might be the prince where there sat
Many brothers in habitat.

All things, indeed, turn to the best for those
Who follow in the promises of rose
Couched in the Decalogue with singing tones
That sparkle in the breastplate high priest owns,
That crinkle with their brightnesses my eyes
Who seek in them Your voice to my surprise.
All things, indeed, Beloved, turn to the fair
For those who take their hands away from wear
And power to lay hold on Your statutes there.
Beloved, I wrest my life away from that
Tortured, determined, lock-step march on flat
To enter the exquisite liberty
Of choice Your Decalogue gives to the free,
Conformed to likeness of Your son’s esprit.

30 Moreover those He did preplan
He also called and those in scan
He called He also justified,
Whom justified He glorified.
31 What shall we then say to these things?
If God’s for us, who carries stings?
32 The One who did not spare His own
Son, but gave him up to atone
For all of us, how shall He not
Along with him also in plot
Freely give to us all the lot?

Obedience of Your Christ opens the way
For my obedience in the narrow day,
Your planning, calling, justifying him
Results in my glory too and not dim.
My glory is a thing that still is found
Despite the simple life and low around
The modest state I fill upon the ground.
My glory is not in position held
Above mankind, nor when the coffers swelled
With wealth, but in the well-taught deed to do
According to Your command to be true.
So is Your plan, Your calling from the mount,
Your justifying word and deed in count,
To glorify me too by glinting fount.

33 Who’ll lay a charge against the one
Elected by God under sun?
God is the justifying One.
34 So who condemns? It’s Christ who died,
Yet rather who’s risen to bide,
Who is at God’s right hand to stand
To speak up for us in the land.
35 Who’ll separate us from Christ’s love?
Shall tribulation or the shove
Of distress, persecution or
Famine, nakedness on the shore,
Or peril or sword what is more?
36 As it is written, “For your sake
We’re killed all the day long in wake,
We’re seen as sheep at slaughter’s stake.
37 But in all these things we are more
Than victors through him who in store
Loved us. 38 For I’m persuaded that
Neither death nor life lean or fat,
Nor angels, principalities,
Nor powers, nor things present one sees
Nor things to come, any of these,
39 Nor height, nor depth nor any thing
Created can rise to the sting
To separate us from the love
Of God which is in Christ above,
Jesus our Lord from push to shove.

I look down from the heights that frighten me
And find below the depths of all things free,
And see upon horizons all the length
That piles upon the piles of divine strength,
And still find in the still small voice within
The witness that Your love comes without sin
To every soul that buries heart to find
Your Christ in word and deed of the resigned.
Beloved, I am resigned to find as fair
Your footsteps where I struggle well as where
I rest in peace and wait the star-filled stair.
Beloved, I’m up in arms to gain the gate
And storm the battlements where demons wait,
Break through the barbican and take my rate.

ROMANS 9

1 I tell the truth in Christ and not
A lie, my conscious bearing sought
Witness in holy spirit got,
2 That I have grief and sorrow great
Continuing in my heart’s state.
3 For I could wish myself accursed
From Christ for my brothers and nursed
Kinsmen according to the flesh
(But not the spirit to be fresh),
4 Who’re Israelites to whom is given
Adoption and the glory striven,
And covenants and the law heard,
And service and promising word,
5 Whose are the fathers and from whom
Christ came living in flesh for room.
Blessed be God who is over all
Till the ages amen enthral.

The fact is Israelites Paul knew back then
Were not present by Sinai’s foot back when
You spoke the law with thunder and with light.
They did not hear the words or see the sight.
So what they got, they got not with their genes
But by the reading of what intervenes
On scroll and on lip singing from the heart.
Without their race I have as much a part
In Scripture in my own tongue for a start.
Beloved, You gave the covenant of old
To those who obey Your word in the fold.
I come with the intention to obey
All ten of the promises that You say.
I covet no one’s forefathers today.

6 It’s not as if the word of God
Had taken no effect slipshod.
For they’re not all of Israel’s race
Who show in Israel their face.
7 Neither because they are the seed
Of Abraham, children indeed,
But “In Isaac your seed be called.”
8 That is, they who are sons of flesh
Are not the sons of God from crèche,
But the children of promise are
Counted for the seed from afar.
9 For this is the word of promise,
“At this time I will come and kiss
Sarah with a son not to miss.”
10 And not only, but Rebecca
When she also conceived in craw
By one man who’s Isaac our pa,
11 For not yet being born nor yet
Having done right or wrong to set,
That God’s purpose according to
His calling might stand, not in view
Of any good things that they do
But of Him who has called them true,
12 One said to her, “The older shall
Serve the younger without cabal.”
13 As it is written, “Jacob I
Have respected, but Esau’s cry
I have not heard but hate awry.
14 What shall we say then? And with God
Unrighteousness? Not on the sod.

You may have predicted the thing from womb
Of Rebecca, but as I read the tomb
And its inscription, I find Esau had
A choice in what he chose of doing bad.
And yet each choice was harder than the last
Until his sons forced him to meet the blast
Of treachery against Jacob and fast.
I too find circumstances fit the bill
And seem to force my hand for good and ill.
And yet in my experience I find
The patient intention to break the bind
Has its reward, and despite the ensigned
Who cast upon me evil they’ve enshrined,
Your hand bears up my conscience for the kind.

15 For he says to Moses “I will
Have mercy on my own choice still
And have compassion on the one
On whom I will have compassion.
16 So it’s not from one who desires
Nor from the one who runs like fires,
But from God who shows mercy’s spires.
17 The Scripture says to Pharaoh too
That even for this same in view
I have raised you up that I might
Show my power in you that the sight
Might publish through all earth My name.
18 That’s why He has mercy in claim
On whomever he wants, and whom
He wills He hardens to their doom.
19 You’ll say to me then, “Why does He
Still find to blame in you and me,
Since neither has resisted nor
Disobeyed His will at the door?
20 No, but, O man, who are you that
Reply against God where He sat?
Can what is formed say to the one
Who made it, “What is this you’ve done?”
21 Does not the potter have his power
Over the clay, and in an hour
From the same lump to make a bowl
Of beauty or a piss-pot roll?

Indeed, Beloved, though I find Your hand still
To be loving and kind, though I’ve had fill
Of human discomfort from those who chill,
Even if I must bend beneath the weight
Of punishment of Your wrath and Your hate,
I have no justified complaint to make.
All things work behind scenes for Your own sake.
As I look at the broken shards that trace
My life from every nook and hiding place,
I find the scattered pieces patterned yet
In unexpected vessels on the set.
Beloved, the worthless facets I reject
In Your love turn to jewels circumspect,
To mirror the One true and to reflect.

22 If God, willing to show His wrath
And make His power known in Gath,
Was patient with the pots of wrath
Fit only for destruction’s path,
23 And that He might make known the wealth
Of His glory on pots in stealth
Of mercy, that He had prepared
Beforehand to His glory shared,
24 Even us whom He’s called to be
Not of Jews only but the free
Gentiles also? 25 As He says too
In Hosea, “I’ll call them true
My people, who were not My folk,
And her beloved, who was a soak.
26 “And it shall happen in the place
Where it was said to them in trace,
‘You’re not my people,’ there shall they
Be called God’s sons, who holds the sway.”

I heard the church tell me to take a swim
And not come back to chatter or to hymn.
Though I may not be son of priest and bell,
And have no place in pew of Israel,
Still You, Beloved, look on the one whose knell
Was preached in treachery and sent to hell,
And say that I’m a child divine as well.
I may not have a place among the just
And righteous, among the well-dressed to trust,
But I still have a place graved in Your heart,
And I still have a song to sing and part
To play, if only on the edge of noon.
Beloved, You call me still Your child and soon
In comfort I take hold of that bright boon.

27 Isaiah also cried about
Israel, “Though the number of stout
Sons of Israel be as the sand
Of the sea, a remnant shall stand.
28 For He will finish up the work
And cut it short right without shirk,
Because YHWH will make a short work
Upon the earth, not stand and lurk.”
29 And as Isaiah said before,
“Except YHWH of hosts had in store
A seed left to us, we had been
As Sodom, Gomorrah in sin.”
30 What shall we say then, that Gentiles
Who followed in no righteous miles
Have achieved to fair righteousness,
Right which is born of faith’s address?
31 But Israel, who followed the law
Of righteousness has not in awe
Achieved the law of righteousness.
32 And why? Because not by faith, but
As it were by the works that strut
Of the law, for they stumbled at
That stumbling stone where it was at.
33 As it is written, “Behold I
Lay in Zion a stone to shy
And a rock of offence thereby,
And whoever believes on Him
Will not be put to a shame dim.”

Indeed, though congregations may relate
To Your law with obedience to state,
And perfectly reflect Your truth and will,
When they reject a stone You’ve set on hill,
And treat unloving Your son fit to kill,
Then their obedience is all for naught.
Their steeple has become a barren lot.
Like Your Messiah I too have once been
Or even twice I can say without sin
The stumbling block that brought the righteous down.
My role has ever been about the town
To inspire good people to show their frown
And reveal the black heart beneath the coat
Of crass hypocrisy. They’ve missed the boat.

Beloved, as I see the last swimmers sink
Beneath the waters at the church’s brink,
And know the lack of charity that made
Them sinners on the devil’s vast parade
Was directed to me, I have two prayers.
The first is not to take them unawares,
But forgive when they stabbed me on the stairs.
The second is that I who am but small
Compared to the great and fat in the stall,
Who have neither gift nor the good deed done
Shall win upon the long race when it’s done.
Surely if any sign can rise to show
That grace and grace alone’s the way to go,
It would be that I stand in judgement’s glow.

ROMANS 10

1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer
To God for Israel to share,
Is that they might be saved with care.
2 For I testify to them that
They have the zeal of God thereat,
But not according to the fat
Of knowledge. 3 Ignorant of God’s
Righteousness, going on with pods
To set up their own righteousness,
They have not submitted to bless
Themselves to their God’s righteousness.
4 Messiah is the goal of law
For righteousness to every jaw
That is faithful. 5 For Moses shows
Righteousness from the law that goes,
That the man who does things like those
Shall live by them before his foes.
6 But the righteousness come by faith
Speaks in this way and not like wraith,
“Do not say in your heart, ‘Who’ll go
Up in to heaven at a blow
To bring Messiah down to show?’
7 Or, ‘Who shall descend in the deep
To bring Christ from the dead to peep?’
8 But what does it say? ‘Word is near
To you, in your mouth and your ear,
And in your heart,’” that is the word
Of faith that we preach undeterred,
9 That if you confess with your mouth
The lord Jesus, and with no drouth
Believe in your heart that God raised
Him from among the dead, be praised,
You shall be saved, even if dazed.

Two strands of revelation do appear
In the Old Testament of wrath and fear
As some say it must be who raise a cheer.
Two strands of light rise to wake up a tear.
The word made flesh in the Messiah dear,
The word made audible for all to hear
In Sinai’s law: these are the two in spear.
Never was a salvation once made clear
Beside that of these two for hope and gear.
The ten commandments and appointed man
Have always been the centre of your plan.
Let righteousness flood into me and mine,
Into the land I live in to be fine,
And cover all with Your Word and its brine.

10 For with the heart a man believes
To righteousness that he receives;
And with the mouth confession’s made
Unto salvation in heart stayed.
11 For the scripture says “Who indeed
Believes on Him shall be one freed
From shame both in the fruit and seed.”
12 For there’s no difference between
The Jew and the Greek on the scene:
For the same Lord over all’s rich
To all who call Him from the ditch.
13 For whosoever shall call on
The name of YHWH shall be saved drawn.
14 How then shall they call on Him in
Whom they have not believed for sin?
And how shall they believe in him
Of whom they have not heard for dim?
And how shall they hear without some
Preacher to preach to them when come?

The calling on the name, the blessèd name,
Has always been the way to heavenly fame.
When Seth called on the name then men were proud
To turn from civilized and the unbowed
To walk with You, Beloved, beneath the cloud
Of hope and fratricide that’s here allowed.
I call upon the name of YHWH and find
A greater banquet than among the wined,
A greater consolation than the kind.
The service of remembrance of Your flame,
The whirling as a sacrifice in game,
The recitation of Your name’s the same
Today as in the days of Enoch and
The days when David walked upon the land.

15 And how shall they preach, except they
Be sent? As it’s written in sway,
“How beautiful the feet of those
Who preach the gospel that peace chose,
And bring glad tidings of good things!”
16 But they’ve not all obeyed the true
Gospel. For Esaias in due
Says “Lord, who hath believed the springs
Of our report?” 17 So then faith sings
By hearing, hearing by God’s word.
18 But I say Have they not heard stirred?
Yes truly, their message went to
All the earth, and their words unto
The ends of all the world in view.
19 But I say “Did not Israel know?
First Moses says, 'I will now show
You jealousy by those who’re no
People and by the foolish glow
Of a nation I’ll make you mad.'
20 “But Esaias is very glad
To say 'I was found by those who
Were not out looking for the true,
I was made manifest to them
Who were not asking for My gem.'
21 “ But to Israel He says ‘All day
I’ve stretched out My hands in this way
To a folk disobedient and
A people who deny My stand.’”

Beloved, I know Your hands still stretch above
The world where few turn to You in Your love,
Where all run here and there and none repent
Beneath the cloistered flowers in Your tent.
Remind me on a day when prayer turns bleak
To whirl about to find the thing I seek
In You alone, Beloved, and in Your way.
Remind me, my Beloved, upon a day.
I am a jealous sort, and though I flee
From You, I’d turn about, if I should see
You take another hand out of the spree
And leave me headlong in iniquity.
I am a jealous sort, after Your heart
That foils the fables of the fish-god’s dart.

ROMANS 11

1 I say then, “Hath God cast away
His people? God forbid, I say.
For I’m also an Israelite,
Of the seed of Abraham’s light,
Of the tribe of Benjamin’s right.
2 God has not cast away His folk
That He knew beforehand in stroke.
Do you not know what Scripture tells
About Elias in the dells?
How he made intercession to
God against the Israelite crew,
Saying 3 “Lord, they have killed the true
Prophets, and dug Your altars down,
And I am left alone to frown,
And they seek my life around town.”
4 But what did the reply of God
Tell him? “I have reserved in pod
To myself seven thousand men,
Who have not bowed the knee again
To images of Baal in den.”
5 So then at this present time too
There’s a remnant according to
Election of grace promise true.
6 And if by grace, then it’s no more
Of works, otherwise grace in store
Is no more grace than once before.
But if it’s of works, then there’s no
More work. 7 What then? Of Israel’s show
He has not got where he would go,
But the election has found fit,
And the rest are blind where they sit.

The chosen race is still Your own, I see,
And I rejoice that such a thing should be.
That remnant that is secret does not bow
The knee to Baal, they are my own somehow.
Beloved, I praise You that behind the scene
Of wickedness and holocausts where keen
The naked and the woe-begone, I find
The living remnant hidden from the blind.
The lovely race of those obedient
Be my own people though a mere remnant,
And so let me find from my beggar's road
And vagabond's reproach and better load.
Join me to the elect in hidden vale,
And I shall live to see the world grow pale.

8 According as it once was writ,
“God’s given them sleep in spirit,
Eyes that they should not see, and fit
Ears that they should not hear the wit
Until this very day and kit.
9 And David says “Their table be
Made a snare, and a trap to see,
A stumblingblock, and recompense
To them: 10 “Let their eyes and their sense
Be darkened that they may not see,
And bow down their back futilely.”
11 I say then, “Have they stumbled that
They should fall?” God forbid out flat:
But rather through their fall salvation
Has come upon the Gentile nation,
Provoking them to jealous ration.
12 Now if their fall makes the world rich,
The Gentiles wealthy by their pitch,
How much more their Fullness to stitch?

I thank you that some Jewish men and wenches
Fell from holy estate and holy benches
To leave a place for me to take a share
In promises that I could hardly wear,
If left to my devices once laid bare.
But if creation was meant only for
The progeny of Abraham in store,
And others were meant for the chips that fall
Discarded by the sculptor's leaning wall,
My sense of justice grates against the gore.
So much for human sense of justice here:
The artist only has the right to tear
Or joy that any piece of marble laid
May catch the glint of sun in the parade.

13 For I speak to you Gentiles, since
I’m Gentiles’ apostle to wince,
I magnify my office stints,
14 If any way I can provoke
To emulation my own folk,
And save some of them at a stroke.
15 For if their casting away be
The reconciling of earth’s fee,
What then shall their receiving be,
But life from the dead earnestly?
16 For if the firstfruit’s holy, then
The lump is also holy yen,
And if the root is holy, so
Are all the branches in their show.
17 And if some branches break away,
And you, a wild olive in sway,
Are grafted in among their pay,
And nourished by the root that way
And fatness of the olive tree;
18 Don’t boast against the branches wee.
But if you boast, it is not you
Who bears the root, but the root you.

Semitic tents shade me and mine to sing
The Psalms of David on unholy wing,
While all the great and small in temenos
Bow to the din of Baal and Baalite boss.
The root is good enough for me to give
The nourishment that I may need to live,
And so I take the Hebrew strains aloud
And turn my back from the gyrating crowd.
Beloved, I've seen the grafting in my day
Once when I lived and studied a long way
From here. The orchard was a place remote
Where I could learn the ways of carry tote.
I know the thing takes time, and so I sing
The Psalm each evening when I fold my wing.

19 You’ll say the branches were cut off
To give the grafted place to scoff.
20 That’s good enough. For unbelief
They were cut off, and without grief
You stand by faith. So do not boast,
But stand in fear to make your toast.
21 For if God did not spare the true
And natural branches in His view,
Be careful what He’ll do to you.
22 So see the good and harshness too
Of God: on those who fell, the harsh,
But toward you goodness from the marsh,
If you continue in his good:
Else you’ll be cut off as you should.

Long since the wild olive was cast aside
For disobedience along the ride.
When Sabbath disappeared from Christian church,
The wild folk were all left there in the lurch
Of grace imaginary though in style.
The way was taught in enmity and guile,
And in such lack of wit to win a smile
From angel and from gods, if it had been
Less reason to weep for unholy sin.
Beloved, I brace myself against the sway
Of branches that return upon the day
And cast away the freedom of Your law,
Relying on the rule of tooth and claw,
Survival of the fittest for decay.

23 And they too, if they do not stay
In their old unbelieving way,
Will be grafted back in, for God
Can graft them in again with prod.
24 For if you were cut from the tree
Of wild olive’s nature’s degree
And were grafted by contrary
Nature into good olive tree,
How much more then shall these, which be
The natural branches, grafted be
Back into their own olive tree?
25 For, brothers, I don’t want you to
Be ignorant of mystery true,
For fear that you pretend to be
Wise in your own conceit to see:
Such blindness in part’s Israel’s fee,
Until all the Gentiles who’ll be
Saved come into the olive tree.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved:
As it is written on script paved,
“There shall come out of Sion the Saviour,
Turn away ungodly behaviour
From Jacob: 27 For this is my pact
To them, when I rise up to act
And take away their sins all stacked.

The story book unfolds from day to day
As I read how old Israel went astray,
And followed other gods along the way.
That was a long time since. Now as I pray,
I find the Jews as staunch as any who
Reject the wickedness of wicked crew.
No longer do they bow to Baal and think
The scientific ardour of that stink
Essential to the human on the brink.
Instead they read the Torah and each week
Turn to the one and true God that they seek.
Salvation falls upon the ones who know
The better ways that angels came to show.
I follow in the faithful way they go.

28 As concerning the gospel, they
Are enemies for your sakes’ sway:
But touching the election day,
They’re beloved for their father’s way.
29 For the gifts and calling of God
Cannot be broken on the sod.
30 For as you in times past did not
Believe God, and yet have now sought
Mercy through their unbelief wrought:
31 Even so have these also now
Not believed, that it may allow
Through your mercy they also may
Obtain mercy and in one day.
32 For God has concluded them all
In unbelief, that He might call
Mercy upon all in their stall.

The unbelief that scattered out the Jew
Was their unfaithfulness, Beloved, to You,
And not refusal to admit the fair
Jesus was David's son and lawful heir.
All blasphemy against the Son's forgiven,
But not against the Spirit when we've striven.
That's why return to keep You law again
Sets all back under faithful grace to men.
Beloved, my day of mercy comes at last
Announcing the new wine and the repast,
The windows on a holy place in store,
A throne behind the opened, golden door.
The nights and days I spent before Your face
Reveal to me the glories of this place.

33 Oh the depth of the riches of
Wisdom and knowledge of God’s love!
How unsearchable are His ways
Of judgments, and His ways in praise
Past finding out! 34 For who has known
The mind of the Lord as it’s shown?
Or who has been His counsellor?
35 Or who has first given His score,
To turn around, receive again?
36 For of him, and through him, and to
Him, are all things: to whom in due
Be glory for ever. Amen.

Plan of redemption in the mind of God,
Incomprehensible upon the sod,
Is best left without words of explanation
To breach the time and place of its vocation.
The follies that men preach of cross and crown
Are trotted out before the crowd and town,
While You in wisdom and love still look down.
Beloved, in silence I avoid Your frown.
With every speech about atonement I
Hear only heathen voices on the sky,
And so I turn away from those who die,
And learn my business on the awful brink.
For me to obey is my bread and drink,
For You to save any manner You think.


AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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