By
1.
INTRO:
1.1.
In our last study, we looked
at verses 1-16 of chapter 9.
1.1.1. We saw that
with chapter 9 that Paul is now going to begin to discuss eschatology and God’s
plans for His people in the future, and, that Paul began that teaching by
answering many questions that a Jew might have and which might keep him from
coming to salvation in Christ.
1.1.2. We noted
that central to a proper understanding of eschatology is an understanding of
the place
1.1.3. We saw that
the ones who misunderstand the Bible’s teaching of eschatology fail to
understand or interpret Romans chapters 9 through 11 which deal with
1.1.4. We began to
look at how that the Lord chooses or elects those who will come to
salvation. We saw that in this chapter 9
that Paul deals with many misunderstandings as well as confusion concerning God
choosing or electing people to come to salvation through Christ.
1.1.5. We noted how
that in Romans chapter 9 deals with God’s choosing of Israel, chapter 10 deals
with Israel’s present rejection by God, and chapter 11 deals with Israel’s
future restoration by God.
1.1.6. We observed
how that chapter 9 is actually in a logical place in the book of Romans as Paul
goes from discussing the predestination and choosing of believers in Christ and
then begins to discuss how that Israel had been chosen by the Lord but in the
present time is rejected by the Lord.
1.2.
In our study today, we are going to look at verses
17-33 of chapter 9.
1.2.1. We are going
to continue our discussion of the election of the believer in this study
today. A seminary professor once said, “Try
to explain election, and you may lose your mind; but explain it away and you
will lose your soul!” The Bible
Exposition Commentary states, “No one will deny that there are many
mysteries connected with divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Nowhere
does God ask us to choose between these two truths, because they both come from
God and are a part of God’s plan. They do not compete; they cooperate. The fact
that we cannot fully understand how
they work together does not deny the fact that they do. When a man asked
Charles Spurgeon how he reconciled divine sovereignty and human responsibility,
Spurgeon replied: “I never try to reconcile friends!”
1.2.2. We looked in
our last study at God’s choosing of
1.2.2.1. Adam and Eve
were in a covenant relationship with God that promised them eternal life in a
rich paradise called the Garden of Eden.
God would be their God and bless them as long as they did one
thing: not eat of the fruit of the tree
of good and evil. Adam and Eve broke
that covenant in chapter 3 of Genesis when they ate the fruit of the tree
causing the fall of mankind into sin.
1.2.2.2. Next, in
history there was a covenant relationship with God which people could enter
into and it simply required faith in the Lord and blood sacrifice. Not much else is known about this covenant
relationship. Adam and Eve entered into
this covenant after their fall into sin, however we don’t really know much
about this period of time.
1.2.2.3. Next, God
called Abraham out of the land of Ur of the Chaldees and he was promised that
if he went out from his people to a land in which the Lord would lead him that
the Lord would be his God and give him incredible blessings. The Jews, with the exception of Gentile
proselytes, are physical descendants of Abraham, and, as such inherit the
promises of this covenant (at least the faithful remnant, that is). The basis of God’s choosing Abraham and his
descendants to perpetually be His people was initially what is know of as the
Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 12:1-3, “"Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your
relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; And
I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, And the
one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will
be blessed.”” The promises made to Abraham and his
descendants in this covenant and its extensions are unconditional (not
requiring personal holiness and righteousness on his or his descendant’s part)
and relate primarily to :
1.2.2.3.1.
The
1.2.2.3.2.
Becoming a great nation and many descendants (see Gen.
15:5).
1.2.2.3.3.
Blessing and his name being made great
1.2.2.3.3.1.
Abraham has been called the most famous man in history
as the three largest religions consider him the father.
1.2.2.3.4.
All the families of the earth will be blessed in him.
1.2.2.3.4.1.
This promise is messianic as it involves the giving of
the Messiah to the nation for a blessing to all peoples as He will bring
salvation to them.
1.2.2.3.5.
God will bless those who bless him and curse those who
curse him.
1.2.2.3.6.
Power over his enemies (see Gen. 22:17).
1.2.2.3.7.
This covenant made to Abraham was renewed by God with
subsequent generations :
1.2.2.3.7.1.
Abraham’s son Isaac (Gen. 26:3–4).
1.2.2.3.7.2.
Abraham’s grandson Jacob (Gen. 28:13–15).
1.2.2.3.7.3.
Jacob communicated the covenant to his son Joseph
(Gen. 48:3–4, 21).
1.2.2.3.7.4.
It is called ‘an everlasting covenant’ (Gen.
17:7).
1.2.2.3.7.5.
This Abrahamic covenant was reconfirmed and expanded
in the covenants made with Moses in the giving of the Law at Sinai (Ex. 19:3–6;
Dt. 7:6–9), and in the Davidic Covenant (2 Sa. 7:8–16) made with King David and
his descendants which promised a perpetual ruler over Israel (to be fulfilled
in Jesus Christ when He returns to rule over the earth).
1.2.2.3.7.6.
A promise that
1.2.2.4. The next
covenant was inaugurated under Moses for
the Jews with the giving of the Torah which included commandments, the keeping
of which were the condition of God’s blessing or cursing of the nation of
Israel (Ex. 20–40; Lv. 1–27)
1.2.2.5. When Jesus
administered His Last Supper to His disciples on the night before His betrayal
as He handed them the cup of wine He told them that the wine symbolized the New
Covenant in His blood that He was now inaugurating. It is through this final covenant that
all of God’s people become believers in Christ by placing their trust in Jesus
Christ and His sacrifice for them to pay the debt of their sins and purchase a
place in heaven for them.
1.2.2.5.1.
Jeremiah prophesied that this New Covenant would be
established in Jer. 31:31–34.
1.2.3. On the basis
of these covenants made by God to the nation of Israel, we see that God has a
distinct plan in the future for both the church as well as the nation of Israel
(See also 1 Corinthians 10:32; Acts 3:12; 4:8, 10; 5:21, 31; Rom. 10:1;
11:1–29). Moody’s Handbook of Theology
has the following quote concerning “Dispensationalism” : “Dispensationalists emphasize that
1.2.4. “A major
purpose of the Tribulation is to discipline
1.2.5. Viewing the
book of Romans, it is a stark and amazing observation to see how that Paul
leaves such an emotional pinnacle in chapter 8 as he climaxes his argument
concerning the assurance of salvation of the believer and then heads into
chapter 9 and begins to talk immediately about the great sorrow he had for
Israel because they were separated from the Lord, having rejected Jesus their
Messiah. Paul was willing to suffer the
punishment of eternal hell if his brethren, the Jews, might come to
salvation.
1.2.6. The Bible
Exposition Commentary includes the following about the shift that happens in
the latter part of chapter 9 in Paul’s discussion of
2. VS 9:17 - “17 For the Scripture says to
Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in
you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires,
and He hardens whom He desires.” - Paul tells
us that the scripture reveals God’s sovereignty in showing mercy to whom He
will show mercy in His dealings with Pharaoh
2.1.
In this verse concerning God’s judgments on Pharaoh, Paul
writes that there are two reasons for which God does not elect and predestine
everyone to salvation, but rather will pour out His wrath on those who reject
Him and the salvation that He offers :
2.1.1. His power is
demonstrated in His punishing of them.
2.1.2. His Name is
proclaimed.
2.2.
“We must never think that God enjoyed watching a
tyrant like Pharaoh. He endured it. God said to Moses, “I have surely seen the
affliction of My people... and have heard their cry... for I know their
sorrows” (Ex. 3:7). The fact that God was long-suffering indicates that He gave
Pharaoh opportunities to be saved (see 2 Peter 3:9). The word “fitted” in
Romans 9:22 does not suggest that God
made Pharaoh a “vessel of wrath.” The verb is in what the Greek grammarians
call the middle voice, making it a reflexive action verb. So, it should read: “fitted himself for destruction.” God
prepares men for glory (Rom. 9:23), but sinners prepare themselves for
judgment. In Moses and
2.3.
God allowed Pharaoh to harden his heart and defy Him
in order that His power might be demonstrated in the judgments and punishments
that He poured out on Pharaoh through the plagues wrought through Moses. In the outpouring of His judgments and
punishments, God’s Name was proclaimed in all the earth for the things which He
had done.
2.4.
We do have to realize that God did not cause Pharaoh
to do the wicked things that he did.
Rather, God allowed him to do these things, and then worked through them
for His own purposes in the earth, and specifically to glorify and magnify
Himself. We see in the account of
Pharaoh given in Exodus that “first Pharaoh hardened his heart,” and “then
God would subsequently harden Pharaoh’s heart.” I believe that it is written there 8 times
that Pharaoh hardened his heart. We see
from this as well as the rest of scripture the principle that “God never
hardens anyone’s heart who has not already hardened it himself.” God confirms a person in their decision to
harden their heart against Him, and so in a sense God turns them over to their
sin (as we saw in Romans 1:18-2:1), and part of the punishment of their sin, is
to sin. They suffer the consequences of
sin because of their sinning. God
withdraws His restraining hand, and then they are thrust even further into
their sin.
3. VS
9:21-22 - “19 You will say to
me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the
contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will
not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not
the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel
for honorable use, and another for common use?” -
Paul answers objections to God’s sovereignty by stating the fact that a
created being such as we are has no right to question the one who created him
3.1.
In these verses, Paul deals with another objection
which people might have to the doctrine of God’s election and
predestination. The objection concerns
an attitude of fatalism which is constituted of a notion that if God is
sovereign and thereby elects and predestines to salvation, then no one really ‘resists
His will’ since He is the One who predestines what people will due.
3.2.
As I mentioned in the previous verses concerning
Pharaoh, if anyone rejects God and hardens his heart against Him, it is only
his fault for doing so. I mentioned also
in an earlier study of a previous chapter of Romans that in scripture when we
see that God elects those who will come to salvation that this does not in any
way take away from human responsibility, for in a general sense all are called
and given the opportunity to come to salvation.
Plus,it is never written in scripture that God predestines anyone to be
sent to hell for eternal punishment, although He predestines some to eternal
life. These seemingly contrary concepts
are hard for our finite minds to reconcile.
3.3.
Well, in answer to this objection that if God elects
and predestines, then no one really resists His will since He is the One who is
predestining, Paul replies that we as humble vessels of clay on the God’s potters
wheel have no right to question God as to what He should or should not do. How dare we do so? When we compare our humble frames to Almighty God our creator, in all of His
power and might, then we really have no right to question at all what He does
with us or anyone else.
3.4.
Likewise, since we have derived our very being from
the Lord, since He is our creator, then He also has the right to do with us
whatever He wants. We owe everything
that we are and have to Him.
3.5.
God has a right to create one group of humans who will
suffer the full and deserved punishment in hell for their sins, as well as to
create to make another group upon whom He lavishes His love, grace, and mercy,
for He is God.
3.6.
We Christians must realize that now that we have come
to know Christ, that our life is not our own.
Paul wrote about this in 1 Cor. 6:19-20, “19 Or do you not know that
your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God,
and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body.”
We must let the Lord be the Lord and Master of our life, and everything
that we do. We must seek Him and His
strength and leading in every situation in which we find ourselves.
4. VS
9:22-23 - “22 What if God,
although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured
with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so
in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of
mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,” -
Paul asks the rhetorical question of what if God endured with much
patience vessels designed for wrath in order that He might make known the
riches of His glory upon other vessels of mercy whom He prepared beforehand for
glory?
4.1.
There have been a few different ways to interpret
these verses, however none of the ways really deter too much from is obvious
that Paul wants to communicate in the verses.
I tend to think that what Paul is saying is something like, “What
really can we say to God if He chooses to patiently endure those people whom He
knows are destined to have His wrath poured out upon them for eternity, in
order that by doing so He might reveal to His true people whom He elected and
predestined to salvation and glory all of the wondrous riches of His glory.”
4.2.
In the last part of verse 23, Paul writes that God’s
true people are headed for the glory that He planned and prepared for them
before the creation of the world.
5. VS
9:24-26 - “24 even us, whom He
also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. 25 As He
says also in Hosea, “I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’And
her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’” 26
“And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My
people,’” - Paul tells us about the fact
that as part of God sovereignly choosing those who would come to salvation that
He had the right to choose both Gentiles as well as Jews to be His people
5.1.
In these verses, Paul answers another objection that
the Jews had in his day concerning the Gentiles being able to come to
salvation. The Jews thought that the
Gentiles could not come to salvation, that is, unless they became converted to
Judaism, and were circumcised. Even when
they were converted to Judaism, Gentile proselytes were only allowed to come
into the outer court of the temple by the Jews.
5.2.
Paul reveals in these verses which are quoted from
Hosea chapter 2:23 and 1:10, that God had declared prophetically through the
Old Testament prophets of this time in which He would open the door of
salvation up to the Gentiles. It
actually had been part of God’s plan all along that the Jews be the vehicle to
reach the Gentiles for salvation, however the Jews rejected that calling for
themselves.
5.3.
There is a translation of the Bible which has
commentary notes in it which allude that originally God intended His people the
Jews to be saved when He sent His only-begotten Son to the earth, however that
plan didn’t work because the Jews rejected their Messiah, and as a result God
decided to open salvation to the Gentiles who would come to have a saving faith
in Christ. However, this view is dead
wrong for a few reasons, including:
5.3.1. The fact
that God foreknows the end from the beginning in all things.
5.3.1.1. God knew before
He created anything who would and who wouldn’t receive salvation.
5.3.2. Not only did
God foreknow these things, He is also working out everything according to His
purposes in the earth, and He predestines who will come to salvation.
5.3.2.1. God knew that
the Jews would reject their Messiah, and thus He had Hosea prophesy that the
door would be opened up wide to the Gentiles during this church age. Hosea was called by God on different
occasions to marry two prostitutes in order to declare openly to the Jews the
fact that they had committed spiritual adultery against God, and that in spite
of that God called and called out to them, yet they refused to answer Him.
5.3.3. Finally,
because God’s people rejected Him, He rejected them and subsequently according to
His own purposes opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles through simple
faith in Christ.
5.3.3.1. All of this
was by God’s design.
6. VS
9:27-29 - “27 And Isaiah cries
out concerning
6.1.
In these verses, Paul gives more scriptural support
for his argument that the Old Testament says that God chooses those who are to
come to salvation. He quotes from Isaiah
10:22 about the fact that it is only going to be ‘a remnant’ who are
going to be saved. Though God’s people
be many in number, there are few who are going to be saved. Jesus said that there would not be many who
will be saved in Matt. 7:14, “14 “For the gate is small, and the way is
narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.”
6.2.
Paul warns in verse 28 that God’s judgment, the
separating of the sheep from the goats, those to eternal life from those to
eternal damnation, will be absolutely thorough (leaving none to be able to
escape) and that it would come very soon.
6.3.
Then, Paul quotes from Isaiah 1:10 about God choosing
the remnant of
6.4.
Next, Paul says that if God had not had mercy on those
whom He has mercy on, calling them unto salvation, then He would have had to
destroy all people just in the same way He destroyed
6.5.
There are several Old Testament scriptures which
compare God’s dealings in judgment upon His people to the judgment He performed
on
6.6.
We Christians must recognize that if it had not been
for the Lord’s gracious dealings with us, that all of us have the potential to
do any of the most heinous of sins. It
is only the Lord’s restraining influence in our lives which has kept us from
this depth of sin. There is no
righteousness inherent in any of us, it is only because of God that we do not
fall into the worst of sin. Paul wrote
in 2 Cor. 5:14a of the constraining influence of Christ in the Christian’s
life, “14 For the love of Christ controls us.”
7. VS
9:30-33 - “30 What shall we
say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness,
even the righteousness which is by faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing a law of
righteousness, did not arrive at that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue
it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling
stone, 33 just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in
7.1.
In these verses, Paul writes about the fact that God, of
His own choice, called Gentiles to faith in Christ, who were not even pursuing
Him or a life of ‘righteousness’ (rightness with Him). These came into relation with God through the
preaching of the gospel and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. However, because God’s own people, the Jews,
would not bring themselves to accept a relationship with God through faith in
Christ as Lord and Savior, and instead chose to try to establish their own
means of a relationship through the righteousness of their own works, with a
covenant abandoned and nullified by God, they were rejected by God and disowned
for the present time by God.
7.2.
Because the Jews rejected their Messiah, they
fulfilled what God’s Word through the Old Testament prophets had foretold in
Isaiah 28:16, they stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone.’ This ‘stone’ is Christ, whom Paul in
another letter calls the “chief cornerstone.”
7.3.
Paul then says of Christ that He is ‘a stone of
stumbling and a rock of offense.’
Jesus is the only way to God and salvation, as Jesus said of Himself in
John 14:6, and anyone who does not come to salvation through faith in Him, will
suffer eternal punishment away from the presence of the Lord.
8. CONCLUSIONS:
8.1.
The Jews sought to try to maintain a relationship with
the Lord based upon the keeping of the Law of Moses, or by their own
righteousness and works. However, since
none are righteous and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”
(Rom. 3:20), this approach is an impossibility for fallen man. Salvation is available to all, yet only the
elect will choose to be saved. However,
salvation shall be received only by the free gift of God purchased by Jesus
Christ. Are you trusting in your own
works and righteousness to gain and relationship with God and get you to heaven,
or are you trusting in Jesus Christ and the work He performed on Calvary’s
cross on your behalf?
8.1.1. The answer
to this question determines whether or not a person has been chosen to
salvation through Christ.
8.2.
Does a study of predestination and God’s electing to
salvation cause you to give thanks to God for His love, mercy, and grace? Or, does it cause you to question God’s
character and whether or not He is just?
8.2.1. The answer
to this question determines whether or not a person has been chosen to salvation
through Christ.
8.3.
Do you realize that because God is God and we are the
humble creations of His which we are, that you really have no right to question
God for anything that He does?
8.4.
Do you recognize the futility to question and resist
the Lord and His will for your life? In
the Star Trek series there is an alien life form that is called the Borg, and
they are constantly assimilating other species and organisms. When they come to a species they always state
that they are the Borg and “Resistance is futile.’ It is futile to resist the Lord because He is
eventually going to win every battle and He is eventually going to work out His
purposes on the earth. The question is
whether or not we will be part of His plan…