Isaiah 2:3
3. If the curse foretold against Israel has been literally fulfilled, so shall the promised blessing be literal. We Gentiles must not, while giving them the curse, deny them their peculiar blessing by spiritualizing it. The Holy Ghost shall be poured out for a general conversion then (Jer 50:5; Zec 8:21, 23; Joe 2:28).
from Jerusalem— (Lu 24:47) an earnest of the future relations of Jerusalem to Christendom (Ro 11:12, 15). Acts 13:46
46. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, &c.—This is in the highest style of a last and solemn protestation.
It was necessary that the word should first have been spoken to you—See the direction of Christ in Lu 24:47; also Ro 1:16. since ye judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life—pass sentence upon yourselves. Romans 1:16
16. For I am not ashamed of the gospel—(The words, "of Christ," which follow here, are not found in the oldest and best manuscripts). This language implies that it required some courage to bring to "the mistress of the world" what "to the Jews was a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness" (1Co 1:23). But its inherent glory, as God's life-giving message to a dying world, so filled his soul, that, like his blessed Master, he "despised the shame."
for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth—Here and in Ro 1:17 the apostle announces the great theme of his ensuing argument; SALVATION, the one overwhelming necessity of perishing men; this revealed IN THE GOSPEL MESSAGE; and that message so owned and honored of God as to carry, in the proclamation of it, GOD'S OWN POWER TO SAVE EVERY SOUL THAT EMBRACES IT, Greek and Barbarian, wise and unwise alike.