Please turn in your Bibles this evening to Romans chapter 9 as we continue our study through the Word of God. In Romans chapter 9 through Romans chapter 11 we are going to be in the fourth main division of this letter, a section dealing with election. Now this is a truly controversial section for many, as we shall see. Some commentators ignore this section completely, feeling it doesn't belong and they believe it may have been another sermon of Paul's that was just attached to this letter to the Romans. I disagree.
Others feel that Paul has taken a detour in his letter
and this section has nothing to do with the rest of the letter.
They feel what Paul said in Romans 8:37-39, "Yet in all
these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved
us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels
nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to
come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall
be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord." And chapters 9, 10, 11 don't fit in, Paul
moves right into Romans 12:1-2 where he says, "I beseech
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which
is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may
prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
It does seem to fit nicely, but these three chapters are vital not only to the Jewish believers, but I also believe they are vital for us to know and understand. To the Jewish believers in Rome, their question might be: “Does this mean that God is done with the Jewish people and all He has given to them is for nothing?” Of course God is not done with the Jewish people for Jesus said in Matthew 23:37-39 as he was looking at the city of Jerusalem, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’” They will call upon Jesus during the tribulation period as a nation, and as Paul tells us in Romans 11:25-27, “For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: ‘The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.’” So God has not forsaken His people, the Jews!
Now for the Gentile Christians in Rome, their question might be: “If God was not faithful in keeping His promises to the Jews, how can we be sure He will keep His promises with us?” You see, the character of God is on the line and Paul is going to show us that God is faithful and what He has promised He will bring to pass. Thus, just as God’s promises to the Jews will be fulfilled, so too will His promises to the believing Gentiles be fulfilled! God saves people!
Do you see how important this section is before Paul moves on in chapter 12 and discusses the application of all these things? You see; if God is not faithful to fulfill His promises, if there is no hope, why walk in His ways. But He is as we shall see in Romans chapter 9 through Romans chapter 11 and thus, we should have a walk that is worthy of the high calling by which we have been called!
Now before we move into Romans chapter 9 this evening, let me put these three chapters into perspective for you. In Romans chapter 9 Paul deals with Israel’s past election. In Romans chapter 10 Paul deals with Israel’s present rejection. And then in Romans chapter 11 Paul deals with Israel’s future restoration. So keep that in mind as we go through these chapters and lets begin reading in Romans chapter 9 this evening, starting in verse 1 and see what the Lord has for us.
Paul just finished speaking of God’s rich and unfailing love for us, that there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. That is the mountaintop you might say, what a joy, what comfort to know those truths, but then comes the sorrow. As we are going to see Paul is broken over the Jewish people, his brethren, for the most, have rejected the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Thus, there is condemnation for them, their sins have separated them from God and Paul is devastated over this. I think each of us have those same emotions, joy over our salvation but brokenness over family and friends who have rejected Christ! Martian Luther put it this way: “Love is not only pure joy, and delight, but also great and deep heaviness of heart and sorrow.”
This is love, that if it were possible Paul was willing to go to Hell so his Jewish brethren could be saved – that is how much he loved them. How much do we love people? Are we willing to sacrifice our time, get off the sofa and spread the Gospel message? Paul was willing to sacrifice his eternity! Notice the heart of Moses as he interceded for his people who had made the golden calf to worship God by and God was going to judge them for it and we are told, “Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, ‘You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the LORD; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.’ Then Moses returned to the LORD and said, ‘Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and have made for themselves a god of gold! Yet now, if You will forgive their sin — but if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written.’” Exodus 32:30-32. That was the heart of Moses, to give up his eternity if his people would be cast out! Folks, that truly is the heart of a believer, his love, his compassion for the lost no matter how they may respond, what they may do! It is the heart of Jesus and my prayer is that God would give me more of His heart, that kind of love for people and I am sure you feel the same way for yourselves!
To put things into perspective, listen to what Spurgeon said: “Get love for the souls of men – then you will not be whining about a dead dog, or a sick cat, or about the crotchets of a family, and the little disturbances that John and Mary may make by their idle talk. You will be delivered from petty worries (I need not further describe them) if you are concerned about the souls of men . . . Get you soul full of a great grief, and your little grief’s will be driven out.” Perspective is everything!
God made the Jewish people His own special people and He blessed them by adopting them as His own, gave them the covenants, the Law, they were to serve God, all of God’s promises were given to them, and yet they rejected the Messiah, they rejected Jesus, “the eternally blessed God” and as Paul looked at all they had, it now meant nothing without Jesus! We have been so blessed by God, may we not lose that perspective and forsake Him and become complacent in what we have as the Jews did.
Thus, the logical conclusion is that God’s Word has failed for Israel is lost. That phrase regarding God’s Word, has “taken no effect” carries with it the idea of a ship going off course. But that is not the case; God is faithful no matter what man may do with God’s Word. You see, Israel means, “governed by God” and thus, it is not being born in the physical sense a Jew but in a spiritual sense. Only those who are governed by God are truly Israel! Think of it like this, over 80% of Americans call themselves Christians but the reality is, only those who are followers of Christ are truly Christians! Thus, God has not failed, He always has His faithful remnant who love Him and serve Him!
Paul expounds on this by showing us that being a descendant of Abraham doesn’t save you and he uses Abraham’s son’s; Ishmael a son of the flesh and Isaac a son of the promise. Paul, in Galatians 4:22-26 tells us, “For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar — for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children — but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all.” Paul is speaking of Law and grace, entering into a relationship with God by the Law through works or by grace through faith. The Law can’t save, it is a work of the flesh, but by becoming a child of the promise, and entering in by faith you are saved!
I think for most of us it is easy to see why God chose Isaac over Ishmael. The problem comes in trying to figure out why God chose Jacob over Esau. The logical conclusion would be that Jacob was better than Esau, but that truly was not the case. In fact Paul tells us it was not of works or the things they did. Then what was it based upon? God’s sovereign election, it was made before they were born. Think of it like this, why did God choose the nation of Israel, the Jews, to be His representative to the world? In Exodus 32:9 we are told, “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people!’” You see, it was not because of how good they were, but God’s sovereign election.
I am not the pastor of this church because I am a great guy, I am so special that God needed me but because of His sovereign election and I am always humbled by the fact that God used a donkey in the Old Testament to speak forth His Words! And please understand that God has a purpose, He has a plan, He does not choose arbitrarily, He knows the beginning from the end!
Paul also quotes out of Genesis 25:23 where we are told in regards to the twins who were to be born, Esau who was the oldest and Jacob, and that “the older shall serve the younger.” When did Esau serve Jacob? Not in their lifetime but in their descendants and thus, when Paul quotes out of Malachi 1:2-3 as he says “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” he is speaking of the nations and not the individuals. And in Obadiah God declares His hatred over the Edomites for their idolatry, their violence against Israel, their rejoicing when Israel was defeated in battle and-so-on. Also, God’s love of Jacob was also speaking of the nation, looking upon those who received Him as opposed to those in Israel that rejected Him for as Paul said, “ . . . For they are not all Israel who are of Israel.” Romans 9:6. Gods sovereign will – we must accept it by faith because when we try to understand it with our finite minds, we will short-circuit the system! It is as one seminary professor said: “Try to explain election, and you may lose your mind; but explain it away and you will lose your soul.” God is fair, He is righteous and all His judgments are perfect, that is the basis you must approach election.
Mercy speaks of not getting what we deserve. We deserve death and God shows us His mercy and doesn’t destroy us! Thus, is God unrighteous in his actions towards us? “Certainly not!” “God forbid!” Why is that true? Because He, being God, has the right to extend mercy to whomever He chooses. The thing is, I believe God’s mercy is extended to all, but because some may refuse Him, they will see His wrath! God is fair!
Thus, God’s mercy is not given to us because of what we want to do (him who wills) or because of what we are doing (him who runs) but it is simply the mercy of God that He extends to us. It is as we are told in Exodus 34:5-7, “Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, ‘The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation.’” That is our God in which there is no darkness at all! Now some may say, “That this is not fair! If I don’t want to receive Jesus I don’t have to!” That is true, but then don’t blame God for the judgment that will come upon you. God has not chosen you because you have rejected Him!
God raised up Pharaoh so that He may show His power, His strength through the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart! Now that does not seem fair. If God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, he had no choice in the matter. I disagree. In Exodus 7:13 we are told, “And Pharaoh's heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the LORD had said.” (See also Exodus 8:15, 8:19, 8:32, 9:7, 9:34). You see, Pharaoh made his heart firm, hard towards the will of God. Then what did God do for the Scriptures also say that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart? We are told in Exodus 9:12, “But the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh; and he did not heed them, just as the LORD had spoken to Moses.” (See also Exodus 10:1, 10:20, 10:27, 11:10, 14:8). So which is it? The Hebrew word for “hardened” means “made firm.” So Pharaoh hardened his heart and God made firm what Pharaoh wanted, He gave to Pharaoh the desire of his own heart! Again, God shows mercy to all, but not all will receive it, they can harden their hearts to God, and God will make firm their decision.
Again, the logical conclusion is that if it is all a matter of God’s sovereign will, then He can’t blame me for what I have done, it is just His will and thus, it is His fault! Yes, it is God’s sovereign will and it is also the choice we make. Judas couldn’t blame God for what He did to Jesus, selling Him out for money but God did use the choices that Judas made to fulfill His will and God does the same today for He knows the beginning from the end.
Paul then gives to us an illustration of God being the potter and man, made from the dust of the earth, is the clay. (See Isaiah 45:9, Jeremiah 18:1-10). As clay we can’t complain what God is forming us into, all we can do is submit to His will, allow His hands to mold and shape us into the men and women He wants us to be, the vessels He wants, vessels of honor if we allow Him!
In regards to making some vessels of honor and some into vessels of dishonor, we are all in the same boat, sinners separated from God, all starting out as vessels of dishonor. But God can take those vessels of dishonor and transform them into vessels of honor for His use. Now some come to the faulty conclusion that God has also made some to be eternally cast into Hell, predestined them to Hell with no way out! I disagree because it negates man’s responsibility. Peter tells us in II Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” God desires all to be saved and it is truly up to us to respond to that invitation and receive it into our lives.
In regards to this issue of being predestined to Hell, Dr. Barnhouse tells us:
“Calvin was very guilty at this point. He attempted to deduce from this passage what has come to be called ‘double predestination.’ The Bible nowhere announces the predestination of the lost. It would seem that Calvin and others have drawn an inference in purely human logic. They would hold that the choice of Jacob implies the reprobation of Esau. Both these brothers were born in sin; they both had the nature of Adam. They both grew up in sin. They both were children of wrath, disobedient by nature. If there had been any merit in these two sons, God would have been unjust in not rewarding that merit. The choice of one deserving man over another deserving man would have been favoritism. When we see that the two were equally undeserving, the whole picture becomes different. Everything that is said in the entire Bible about the nature of fallen man may be said – must be said – about both Jacob and Esau. God determined, for causes that are to be found in Himself and have not been revealed to us, to show favor to Jacob.”
God is patient, He is longsuffering otherwise we would all be toast! In fact, when you look at the wickedness of people today, don’t you wonder why God’s judgment hasn’t fallen upon us? It is because He is patient and longsuffering, desiring all to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ! Now keep in mind that Paul is still picturing Pharaoh, a vessel of dishonor, not because God predestined him to destruction, but he chose to go down that path, he hardened his heart to the will of God! In contrast, to those who surrender to the Master Potter, to Jesus, we will shine as examples of God’s mercy, the world will see the power of God to rescue sinful man from the miry pit they are in.
The Jews felt they were vessels of honor and the Gentiles, they were created to fuel the fires of Hell, they were vessels of dishonor. But Paul is saying that not only are believing Jews saved but also believing Gentiles! God does not prepare vessels of destruction, but He does prepare vessels of mercy and glory. It is as C. R. Erdman said: “God’s sovereignty is never exercised in condemning men who ought to be saved, but rather it has resulted in the salvation of men who ought to be lost.”
To prove his point to the Jews that the salvation of the Gentiles was not just an after thought, a New Testament idea, he quotes out of Hosea, an Old Testament prophet who spoke of the Gentiles being saved!
Paul wants to make sure that the Jews understand that God is not done with them, He has not forsaken them, that there is a remnant of Jews who will be saved, and Paul quotes out of Isaiah to prove his point, another Old Testament prophet. If God had forsaken them, if He was done with them, they would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah was when God judged them, completely wiping them out and God’s Word would have failed, and our hope as well as the hope of the Jews would be gone, but of course that did not happen, the Jews are still around and they are back in the land of Israel today! Yes God did judge His people but He always has a faithful remnant that will be saved! It is as Bruce said: “But if only a remnant will survive, at least a remnant will survive, and constitute the hope of restoration.”
Some Jews may struggle with this idea of Gentiles being saved because they never pursued righteousness. On the other hand, the Jews worked hard towards righteousness and didn’t obtain it. How can that be? Because the Jews tried to attain righteousness by the Law through works while the Gentiles attained righteousness by grace through faith! It is as Paul said in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Or as The Amplified Bible puts these verses, “For it is by free grace (God's unmerited favor) that you are saved ( delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation) through [your] faith. And this [salvation] is not of yourselves [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving], but it is the gift of God; Not because of works [not the fulfillment of the Law's demands], lest any man should boast. [It is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.]”
The Jews tried to obtain salvation as we have said by the Law through works and in that relationship with God they could not approach Him because the Law can’t save. There were no chairs in the temple because the priest’s work was never done, the sacrifices were offered day and night. Thus, as the Messiah came, Jesus, to save them from their sins, being the fulfillment of what the Old Testament prophets said of the Messiah, they rejected Him and remained lost in their sins. He was a stumbling block to them as Paul said in I Corinthians 1:23-24, “but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” Now, for the Gentiles and the Jews who believe in Jesus, they shall be saved. You see, if you humble yourself and fall upon this Stone, upon Jesus, you will be saved, but if you rejected Jesus, this Stone will fall upon you and crush you, you will be eternally separated from Him!
Here in Romans chapter 9 Paul spoke of Israel’s past election, “who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.” Romans 9:4-5. As Paul concludes this chapter he is preparing us for Romans chapter 10 which deals with Israel’s present rejection of the Messiah, of Jesus, and we will see that next time. As I begin to rap things up this evening listen to the words of Peter as he stood before the Sanhedrin for his faith in Jesus and he said beginning in verse 5 of Acts chapter 4, “And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ‘By what power or by what name have you done this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. This is the “stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.” Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’” Acts 4:5-12. Let us not forget that fact, outside of Jesus there is no hope, no salvation but in Christ there is hope, there is salvation!
As we have seen tonight, God is faithful, He is righteous, God is just, God is gracious, He is merciful, and thus, we can depend upon Him, we can trust in His promises for the unfaithfulness of man does not negate the faithfulness of God! It is as Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” May we learn to trust in Him more and more as we grow in the Lord!