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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 9:1 to 29 God’s
Sovereign Choice (ch. 9:1-29) In
Romans 9 through 11 Paul shifts his thinking a bit, although in one real sense
of the word he doesn't. Paul
has been speaking about salvation by faith, and that salvation is for both the
Jew and the Gentile, because it is by faith in Jesus and not by obedience to the
Law of Moses that was given only to the Jews.
One might think that God is thus through with the Jews and that their
special status as being a special nation of people is over.
Some Christians today do believe this.
I believe the next three chapters of
Romans have been written by Paul to refute the idea that God is finished
with the Jews. Replacement
theology believes that the church has replaced the Jews as God's chosen people.
I do not believe that. There
are too many passages in the Old Testament that tells us that the status of
Israel and her relationship with God is forever, despite how some people
interpret Galatians 3 and 4.
Romans
9 is another one of those hard chapters to understand. It is all about God’s
Sovereign choices. By this I mean,
God being God can do whatever He wants to do.
The
first thing that Paul says in verse 1 is, "I speak the truth in
Christ." Paul does not hesitate
to say that what he is speaking is the truth.
That would be hard for many people to take these days, when truth is
relevant, and varies from person to person.
Note that the truth he is speaking about is the truth that is in Christ,
the truth that applies to Jesus. Jesus
is ultimate truth. For the
Christian, there is no compromise on that fact.
Paul
then says, "I am not lying." Most
people today would not consider Paul lying.
They'd simply write him off as an old fashion fundamentalist, a
designation that has fallen into disrepute these days.
People would write Paul off because he is thinking as a modernist, when
the rest of the world is post-modern, meaning, there is no ultimate truth.
He
also states that his conscience confirms that he is speaking the truth.
Conscience is something that is not all that important these days, and
again, it is because of relativism. If
every man has his own brand of truth, then one's conscience is based on what
that person believes. So if Paul
says that his conscience tells him that he is not lying, that means nothing
these days, but it did back then.
Here
in Romans 9 Paul shows the intensity
of his feelings that he has for his fellow Jews.
He qualifies his words by saying that he is not lying and that his
conscience confirms this in the Holy Spirit.
In verse 2 he says that he has “great sorrow” and “unceasing
anguish” over the state of the Jews. These
are strong words that show strong feelings inside of Paul.
He goes as far to say that “I myself ”, if it were possible, would
wish to be cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers.
Though Paul was called the Apostle to the Gentiles, you can see his heart
towards His fellow countrymen. One
note about the words “I myself”. We
saw these words in Romans 7. This is
even more proof that Romans 7 is Paul speaking about himself and not mankind in
general. If he uses the words “I
myself” here, and he is talking about himself, then by the same reasoning he
is speaking about himself in Romans 7.
The
words "I myself" also stress what he is saying.
Paul was more than willing to lose his salvation for the salvation of
Israel, but we all know, that is not possible.
All people must stand before God on their own.
No one can stand before God on our behalf, other than Jesus Himself, and
if we reject Jesus, we have no other salvation.
In
verse 3 you will note the words "cut off".
Paul most likely uses these words here because he will use them in
chapter 11 when he speaks of unbelieving Jews being "cut off" from the
olive tree analogy. Paul is saying,
if it were possible, he'd agree to be cut off from the tree in order for his
fellow Jews to be saved. Those who
believe in "once saved always saved" might point to this in their
defense. It's not possible for Paul
to be cut off, especially in light of what he will say later on this the next
chapter concerning the fact that it is God's choice to save those He wants to be
save. I don't believe in
"once saved always saved". Another
reason why Paul uses the words "cut off" is because God Himself used
those words a lot in the Old Testament. For
example, if a man was not circumcised, he was to be cut off from Israel.
This is the sense that Paul is using these words.
In
verses 4 and 5 Paul lists many advantages that the Jews had over the Gentiles.
The last advantage is most powerful. He
says that from the Jewish fathers the “human ancestry” of Jesus could be
traced. Paul did not stop at that
point. He goes on to say, “...who
(Jesus) is God over all”. This is
a powerful statement. Paul is saying
here that “Jesus is God”. This
was the very thing his Jewish brothers couldn’t accept.
The thing that separated Paul from his Jewish brothers was the fact that
Jesus is God. Paul lived in daily
anguish over Israel’s rejection of Jesus, the One who is God. The same fact is
what separates the real Christian from all other people today. There
are a number of ways to prove in Biblical terms that Jesus was God, yet there
are only a few verses in the New Testament that state this directly and with
great clarity. One of these verses
is found right here in Romans 9:5. Some
others are; John 1:1, John 1:18, John 20:28, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, 2 Peter
1:1, and1 Timothy 3:16. One
of the advantages Jews had that Paul speaks of here is that they received the
divine covenants. Note that the word
covenants is plural. We often think
of one old testament covenant, that being the Abrahamic Covenant, but God
promised Israel many things at many times over the years.
The Old Testament prophets spoke many promises from God.
The
other advantages Paul speaks of are as follows. Israel had the privilege of
being adopted sons of God, something Gentiles were also included in when it
comes to New Testament times. But
the principle that states " to the Jew first and then to the Gentile"
applies here. The Jews had first
chance at being adopted sons of God. "Theirs
is the divine glory" means that Israel had the distinction of having God's
glorious presence with them. No
other nation had this advantage. The
had the covenants, that is more than one covenant.
There was the Davidic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant, and many other
covenants, or promises of God throughout the Old Testament.
All these covenants were God's promises to Himself to bless Israel.
Some had specific conditions, and some had no conditions. Paul
said that the Jews had the Law. God
gave Israel a special system of laws to live by, along with a temple and special
rules of worship. No other nations
had these laws, or the temple. All
these things were prophetic of the Messiah that would come.
That's why Paul leaves the idea that it was through the ancestry of the
Jews that Christ, the Messiah, was to be born.
The last advantage that the Jews had were all the promises of God, and
there were many. No other nation had
any of these things, only Israel. They
were certainly blessed, but they did not know how greatly they were blessed. .
In
verse 6 Paul assures his readers that God’s Word did not fail.
Anything God does, can’t fail. One
might think because Israel rejected Jesus that His Word and promises failed, but
that is not so. Why is it not so?
Just because one is a physical descendent of Abraham does not make him a
part of Israel. Paul says, “not
all descendents of Abraham are Israel”. We
came across this idea in Romans 2:28-29 and also in Romans 5:12, 17 and 18.
In
verse 7 Paul says that not all descendants of Abraham are children of Abraham,
or children of God. He goes on to
qualify his thinking. He says that
the descendants of Isaac are the children of Abraham.
Why does he say this? Remember
that Abraham had a wife named Sarah and a slave named Hagar.
Abraham had a son born from Hagar named Ishmael, yet God promised Abraham
that he would have a son from his wife Sarah.
This would be that great son of promise.
Sarah did conceive and Isaac was born.
The real children of Abraham, or Israel would be from the lineage of
Isaac, the child of promise, not from Ishmael.
Paul explains this further in Galatians 4.
In
Gal. 4:21-24 Paul says that Abraham had a son from the slave woman Hagar, and a
son from the free woman Sarah. In
Gal. 4:24 Paul says that “you can take this figuratively.”
This means that there is a secondary meaning to this historical event.
Paul says that Hagar represents the Law and Sarah represents the promise
of grace. He concludes that
Christians are sons of promise. (Gal. 5:29)
Just as Isaac was born from the power of the Spirit, so we are born by
the power of the Spirit. Paul goes
on to quote from Gen. 21:10 that says, “get rid of the slave woman and her
son…” This is a dramatic
statement. Paul is saying that being
a Jew, when it comes to Salvation, means nothing.
You
might want to look at Gen. 21:10. This
is the story. Isaac had just been
weaned from Sarah and everyone was very happy except for Ishmael, the son of
Hagar. Ishmael mocked Isaac, and as
a result Sarah was very upset. She
told Abraham “to get rid of Hagar and Ishmael because they will never share in
any inheritance of Abraham”. Paul
takes this historical event and spiritualizes it.
He says that you can take this figuratively.
He is putting a New Testament significance to this Old Testament event.
Obviously we believe Paul has the right to do this.
I don’t believe that we have the right to do as Paul did.
If this were so we would have many secondary meanings to Old Testament
events. Paul had divine revelation
in order to make these special interpretations.
It is an interesting study to see how Old Testament Scriptures are used
and interpreted in the New Testament.
So
back in Romans 9 Paul is saying that the real Israel are those born of promise,
that is we who are born by the Spirit. We
are true Israel. This is why God’s
word did not fail. We are the result
of His promise and His Word. His
promise did come true in the New Testament believers as God originally planned. One
thing I need to clarify at this point and that is Paul is still using the term
"descendents of Abraham" in this section.
We need to understand that God is not making a new kind of generic family
here. It's still the family, or the
descendents of Abraham. He's only
opening the doors for Gentiles to join the family if they have faith in Jesus.
So in reality, Christians should see themselves as Jews, as descendents
of Abraham. We tend not to think in
this way because we have westernized these things out of existence.
In
verse 7 when Paul repeats the quote that states that is through Isaac that the
offspring is born, the word "offspring" refers to Jesus.
In Gal. 3:15 to 19 Paul makes that very clear.
If
you do a detailed study on the Abraham Covenant, you will notice that God's
promises were directed to three people, or groups of people.
They were directed towards Abraham, his descendents, that's Israel, and
to the offspring, and that's Jesus. We
need to be clear of that because Replacement Theology teaches that the whole of
the Abrahamic Covenant is fulfilled in Jesus, and that is not so.
Israel, as well as Jesus, were promised certain things, including land.
So Israel still has historic and prophetic significance. What Paul is
saying here does not disqualify Israel from being God's special nation.
What Paul says here is that Gentiles who have faith are seen as part of
Israel, and those Jews who do not have faith in Jesus are cut off from Israel.
This passage is all about salvation, not historic prophecy.
In
verse 9 Paul quotes from Gen. 18:10 and 14 where
God told Abraham that at the appointed time He would come to Sarah and she would
conceive a baby boy. This is
truly prophetic of when God, through the Holy Spirit came to Mary, and she
conceived a baby boy as well. Notice
the words "appointed time". God
had a specific time when He was going to come to Sarah.
You see this idea of God having an appointed time all the way through the
Bible. I am convinced that God has
an appointed time for everything. He had an appointed time for the conception of
Jesus, and He has an appointed time for Jesus' return, and He has an appointed
time for everything in between.
In
verses 10 through 13 Paul introduces Rebecca into the picture and her twin sons,
Jacob and Esau. Esau was born first
and Jacob was born second. Yet even
before these two sons were born, before they had any chance of doing right or
wrong, God had chosen which one would be important, which one the lineage of
Abraham would go through. God chose
Jacob over Esau. He said the
“older would serve the younger”. (Gen. 25:23)
This was contrary to Jewish culture.
Usually the oldest son would be the important son.
He would receive the inheritance and blessing from the father.
His brothers and sisters would submit to him.
God did just the opposite in this case.
He said the inheritance would go to Jacob, the younger brother.
Why
did God choose Jacob over Esau? Paul
says that God’s choices and decisions are not made as a result of our good
works. He calls and chooses those He
wants. He is Sovereign. He can do
what He wants. In
verse 13 Paul goes on to make another more dramatic point.
He quotes from Mal. 1:2 and 3 when he says that “God loved Jacob and
hated Esau”. I am not sure that I
can explain this to everyone’s satisfaction.
There has been much debate over this verse for many centuries.
Once again, I doubt that I will end the debate.
All that I can say is that God is Sovereign and He can do what He wants
to do. Yet in light of such
Scriptures as John 3:16 where we see that God loves everyone in the whole world,
we need to look at this verse more closely.
Many people say that God did not hate Esau as He would hate sin.
Esau is part of “everyone
in the world” spoken of in John 3:16. Therefore
God must have loved Esau. He hates
him in the since that He chose Jacob for His divine purpose over Esau, even
though Esau would normally have been the one chosen.
God has the right to choose people for His divine purpose.
This explanation may not satisfy you.
I am not sure it satisfies me, but it is one that has been made over the
years. Paul himself does not really
clarify or answer this question, other than to say, God can choose who He wants.
The emphasis is on the idea that “it does not depend on man’s desire
or effort, but on God’s mercy”, as Paul says in verse 16.
When it comes to salvation, how true this is.
God has done everything. We
can do nothing. Beyond
this explanation we know that God chooses the whole world to be saved.
He also chooses certain people, and not all, to do specific things that
go along with His purposes. He chose
Moses to bring the Law to Israel. He
chose Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
He did not choose me to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
God can choose whoever He wishes, and it doesn’t depend on our works.
It depends of His choice alone. If
you read the Genesis account of Esau, you'll notice that he is not the type of
person that should lead a godly family. Hebrews
12:16 calls him a godless man. He
was godless because he had no regard for his birthright, his inheritance.
He traded it away to his brother Jacob for a meal.
He was also so angry at Jacob that he was attempting to kill him.
You can read this in Genesis 27:41. Esau
appeared to be a man that was always on the go, always outdoors doing things,
not a man suitable to lead a family. For
these reasons that God knew ahead of time, even before Esau was born, God would
make the choice who would lead Abraham's family next.
The whole point here is that the lineage of Abraham had to be pure
because Jesus would be born from this lineage, and it wasn't going to be pure
through Esau. He actually married
two Hittite women, something that God did not want him to do.
Something that God hated.
Here
is another thought on the word “hate” as it is used with Esau.
Remember in Luke 14:26 where Jesus said that you could not be His
disciple unless you hated your mother, father, wife, brother and sister.
Do you really think that Jesus is promoting hatred towards these people?
Could He not be saying that when you compare your love to God, love
towards your fellow man is so much less, it is like hating them.
Could not this thinking be applied to “God hating Esau” as well?
All
that being said, this is probably the correct answer to our problem here.
In Genesis 29:31 we see that Leah was "loved less" than Rachel
by Jacob. The Hebrew word for
"loved less" is idiomatic of the day.
It is also used in Mal. 1:3 that Paul quotes here.
Yet in Malachi, the translators translate the Hebrew as
"hate" instead of "love less".
So when Paul quotes from Mal. 1:3, we should probably think in terms of
God loving Esau less than Jacob, although we would still have the question,
"how and why does God loves some less than someone else".
My only answer would be because of Esau's ungodly behavior.
In
verse 14 Paul asks a question that everyone would ask after saying what he just
said. He asks, "is God
unjust?" On the surface, it
sounds like God is being unjust, but Paul says "no" to that.
In verse 16 Paul quotes from Ex. 33:19 where God simply says that He will
have mercy and compassion on anyone He wants, Again, it is all about God's
sovereign choice. Some people may
not like it, but if God is God, He can do what He wants.
In
verses 16 through 18 Paul gives another example of the same reasoning. He says
that God raised Pharaoh up to show His divine power.
God actually hardened the heart of Pharaoh in order to show many miracles
in the releasing of Israel from Egypt. The
story is seen in Exodus 4 and beyond that
Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God hardened it more.
So it is not as if God did something against Pharaoh’s will.
It may be similar to what we have already talked about earlier.
If we are going to sin, then God may give us over to sin, that is, let us
sin as much as we want and reap the results.
Pharaoh already was in unbelief and rebellion against God.
God simply pushed him a little more down the line of hardness by
irritating him with the judgments against Egypt.
It is important to understand that God did not just reach down into
Pharaoh's heart and make it hard. God
sent plagues to Egypt and to Pharaoh that made Pharaoh mad, resulting in Pharaoh
hardening his own heart. This is how
God hardened Pharaoh's heart. God
did not do something to Pharaoh against his own free will. Paul
actually quotes from Exodus 9:16. Also
in EXODUS 7:3 god says something similar. The
point to Pharaoh's heart being hardened is the that God can show His mighty
power to the world. If Pharaoh's
heart was not hard, then he would have let Israel free with no display of God's
power. But since Pharaoh had a hard
heart God did many mighty miracles to show Himself to be who He is to the world.
These miracles came in judgment. The
miracles were actually the means by which He judged Egypt in one sense of the
word. So we should be clear now why
God did what He did in hardening Pharaoh's heart more than it was.
I believe the same will happen at the end of this age.
I see this Old Testament event being prophetic of the end of this age
when the anti-christ will arise as another Pharaoh.
Then too will God show Himself to be who He really is in the judgments
that we see in the book of Revelation. All
that being said, once again, this is what I believe is the important issue here.
How did God harden Pharaoh's heart? Did
He reach down into his heart against his will and make it hard?
No. God performed miracles
that progressively got more severe. The
first miracle for example was Aaron staff that turned into a snake.
No harm came to Pharaoh because of this, but as the miracles went on,
they got more severe and more harm came to Pharaoh and Egypt.
Pharaoh's heart got progressively harder because of God's miracles that
came against him, not because God reached down into his heart and made it hard.
There is no interference by God into the free will of man here.
This is clear to me, and should solve this problem of God making man do
something against his will. To
confirm what I've just said, in Exodus 8:15, in response to the plague of frogs,
the text says that "Pharaoh hardened his heart".
So there you have it. Pharaoh
indeed did harden his own heart in response to the miracles of God.
Therefore
God will have mercy on anyone He so chooses, and He will harden anyone He so
chooses, as Paul says in verse 18. The
point here is that God is the one in charge.
Our works, whether good or bad have nothing to do with His choices.
Yet once again, He has chosen all to Salvation, but not all respond in
faith. When it comes to specific
tasks for man to do, God will choose whoever He wants. In
verse 19 Paul anticipates the question that people will ask as a result of what
he has just said. If this is the
case, why should God blame us for anything because we can't resist His will.
This is my paraphrase in verse 19. It
makes sense. If God manipulates us to do something against our wills, why should
we be blamed by Him. The answer is
as I have stated. God does not manipulate us against our wills.
He provides the opportunity for us to harden our own hearts, as He did
with Pharaoh. The
simplest explanation for verses 22 and 24 is this.
God has great patience towards those He will eventually pour His wrath
on. Yet when His wrath is poured
out, all will see His power. By
stark contrast, those who receive His mercy will be seen by all.
It is similar to what we saw earlier, when sin increases, grace increases
more. With this backdrop of God’s
wrath against sinful man, the foreground of His mercy is clearly evident.
This
is seen in the exodus of Israel from Egypt.
God chose to show His mercy on Israel, that is, for them to be His
special people. That was
predetermined before Israel ever went into Egypt.
Israel eventually became enslaved by Egypt.
God had already said that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and
those who curse Israel will be cursed. (Gen. 12:1-3)
God had lots of patience towards Egypt, as Paul says here when he speaks
of God having patience on the objects of wrath.
God about 400 years of
patience to Egypt before He finally destroyed them.
Yet, in the destruction of Egypt, the salvation, the mercy of God was
seen on Israel, as stated by Paul here.
From
verses 25 to 27 Paul shows from Old Testament passages that God all along had
plans for the Gentiles to be part of His purposes.
“I will call them my people who are not my people”.
Thus one of Paul’s major points in this chapter is seen.
That is, God has “chosen” the Gentiles for His salvation.
He has chosen the Gentiles to be a part of His family as well.
It is not by any good that they have done.
It is by His choice, and His choice alone.
Again, I need to stress here that God is not making a new family. It's
still the family in which Abraham is the father.
The only change is that Gentiles are freely welcome to join the family if
they believe as Abraham did, and that's believing in Jesus.
In
verses 27 and 28 Paul quotes from Isaiah 10:22 – 23.
He says that Israel will become like the sands of the sea, thus
fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham, but only a remnant of Israel would be
saved. The history of the Jews shows
that most were lost to their enemies as part of God‘s judgment.
Yet even though most were lost, there was still a small number of them
left for God to restore. We
need to note in chapter 9 that God’s sovereign choice talked about here
concerns His choice to choose the Gentiles to salvation, as well as the
Jews. It is not that they have been
any better than the Jews. He simply
wants to include them in His circle of salvation.
There is no mention of choosing certain individuals to be saved here, and
excluding other individuals. Paul is
not talking about individuals. He is
talking about a group of people called the Gentiles.
All
of what we have just discussed is to prove the point that Paul made in verse 6,
where he says that not all who are descendents from Israel are of Israel.
Therefore the main point is to prove that Gentiles are also included in God’s
people. This is the main thought we
should take from this portion of Scripture.
We still need to understand that we're still talking about the
descendents of Abraham here. God's
not cutting off all Jews to make way for Gentiles.
Yes, He's cutting off unbelieving Jews, but the point here is that He's
simply opening the doors to the Gentiles. Romans
9 can't be used to prove that Israel has no more prophetic significance,
especially in light of Romans 11. Another
thing to note is this. When it comes to God choosing in this chapter, all the
examples used are concerning God choosing men to do certain tasks.
The examples used aren’t about God choosing men to salvation.
Paul uses such men as Isaac, Jacob, and Pharaoh as examples of God
choosing certain men for certain jobs. He is not speaking about salvation here.
There is a difference. God
chooses all to be saved, although not all choose to respond.
God also chooses some to do specific jobs in order to bring about His
purposes on earth, and that is His personal choice alone.
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