Romans Chapter 9.

Romans Chapter 9.

Romans Chapter Nine to Eleven. Part Two of the Epistle. The problem of Israel's rejection of the Gospel.

           

Chapter 8 closes with the hymn of triumph;  this was a fitting conclusion to Paul's exposition of the Gospel of God.  Chapter 9 opens with a note of deep sorrow.  Clearly, the first part of the epistle has been brought to its conclusion and a new section begins.  However, the new section has a close relationship to the previous one.  The theme of righteousness through faith is continued and the discussion gathers around Israel's rejection of the righteousness of faith.  This is the problem that Paul faces.  It must have been a very real problem to Paul himself, for he had a genuine love for his kinsmen.

           

In the work of evangelism he constantly encountered this objection to the Gospel.  The problem could be stated in this way: if the Gospel was the fulfilment of promises made in the Old Testament and constitutes the working out of a Divine plan, then why have not the Chosen People received the Gospel?  To the Jew and even to the Gentile, it might appear that God had fulfilled His promise of grace to Israel in such a way as to exclude the greater part of the nation (Caird).  If the righteousness of faith is the fulfilment of the promise, how then is it that Israel has rejected the promise?  It was beyond dispute that the majority of the Jews did reject the Gospel, and since this is so, how then can the Gospel be the fulfilment of His promise to His people?

           

Other writers in the New Testament must also have faced this issue.   Winn suggests that this is the problem that lies behind the two volume work, that of Luke and Acts.  This may well be so.  Luke, like Paul, is concerned with the Gospel as the way of salvation for all men.  Luke, in his two volume work, shows how the salvation of God which was manifested in those events, fulfilled in Jesus Christ at Jerusalem, came to be preached among the Gentiles.  In the salvation-history that Luke relates, the salvation that was offered to the Jews they rejected, but the Gentiles received it.  This remarkable extension of the Church Luke braces against the Old Testament Scriptures and is seen as part of God's Messianic plan.  The Lord, after His resurrection, charged the apostles to fulfil this plan, which He continued to direct by the Holy Spirit.  It would seem then, that when Luke wrote his Gospel-Acts, his history of God's salvation, he had particularly in view the problem that puzzled many Christians.  Why have the Jews rejected the Gospel of the Kingdom of God? 

           

Like Paul, Luke does not finally exclude the nation from God's salvation.  (Lk.21:24;  Acts 1:6-7;  3:19-21).  It was their impenitence that stood in the way of their salvation. (Acts 3:19), and Paul regarded their unbelief as the obstacle (Rom.11:23).

           

Paul's discussion covers three chapters, and is divided into three parts :-

*   First part - God fulfils His word according to His own merciful and sovereign will.        9:1-29.

*   Second part - Israel has stumbled through unbelief, though they had every

     opportunity to believe the Gospel.    9:30-10:21.

*   Third part - The gracious purpose of God in regard to Israel will be accomplished.       11:1-36.

Chapter Nine.

The First Part.  9:1-29.

God is sovereign, and has perfect liberty in the fulfilment of His purpose of election.   God dispenses mercy according to His own will and withholds it according to His sovereign will.  This abolishes all human claims.  No man can treat God's mercy as his claim.  The sovereignty  of God disposes with all Jewish claims and pretensions.  In so setting aside the Jew and fulfilling His word according to His merciful and sovereign will, God has made salvation available to all men.  The sovereignty of God stands over against the special privileges in which the Jew boasted.  God is not restricted by Jewish claims in the exercise of His mercy.  Thus it is seen that God's sovereignty in the dispensing of mercy, is a cardinal argument for the catholicity of the Gospel.  God's free offer of salvation to all men cannot be modified or restricted by the pretensions of any so-called privileged group.  The catholicity of the Gospel stands on the solid foundation of the sovereign will of God.

           

9:1-5.    Paul's sorrow because of the rejection of his own brethren, the Jewish people.

           

Some have accused Paul of disloyalty to his own nation and that faith of Christ was destructive to his former patriotism and appreciation of the special calling of Israel.  This was not true, for Paul's Christianity denies neither love of country nor the historical significance and function of nationhood;  only it relates and subordinates them to the world-purpose of God, to a sovereign enthusiasm of humanity, 'in Christ' (Davies).  It is also as a Christian that he can truly speak concerning the Gospel and God's purpose concerning Israel.

           

9:1-2.    Paul strongly affirms his love for his people, and his love was the more pure and passionate because of his own union with Christ.

           

"I could wish."  9:3. A.T.Robertson translates, "I was on the point of praying."  He was on the verge of wishing, but drew back for it was a wish that could not be fulfilled.  (See Ex.32:32).  Paul was greatly pained by the disobedience of his kinsmen, and the immense privileges given them, deepened his sorrow that they refused the Gospel in which all these privileges could alone be fully realized.

           

9:4-5.    Paul notes their privileges:-

*   Israelites.  9:4.   In the New Testament the designation of Israel is used religiously with an eye to their calling as God's people.  This religious use of the word left room for a larger and greater conception of Israel and, at the same time, Israel according to the flesh might fall short of its  true realization.  In the New Testament the term “Jew” is used with a national or political connotation; while the word “Hebrew” has a linguistic reference and meant Jews speaking Hebrew or (and) Aramaic.

*   Adoption or Sonship.  See Ex.4:22;  Deut.14:1;  32:6;  Jer.31:9;  Hos.2:1.

*  The Glory.  Doxa translates the Hebrew, 'kabod'.   The Rabbis spoke of the Glory or manifestation of God's presence as the 'Shekinah' (from Sheken, to dwell).  (Ex.16:10;  24:16;  Ezek.1:28; 'the splendour of the Divine presence', N.E.B.

*   The Covenants.  Gen.15:18;  17:2-9;  Ex.19:5.

*   The Law-giving.  The Mosaic Law or Legislation.

*   The Service.  'Latreia',  "the temple worship." N.E.B.

*   The Promises.  I.e. the Messianic promises concerning the Kingdom and coming salvation. See Rom.1:2;  4:14;  15:8.

*   The Fathers.   Especially Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

*  The Messiah.  The Advent of  Messiah was their greatest spiritual privilege.  Christ not only came to Israel, but was from Israel according to the flesh.  he belonged to them in a special way, for He was one of them.  (Through birth).

           

The final words of 9:5 are understood by the A.V;  R.V., as a declaration of the Deity of the Messiah.  Many scholars agree with this interpretation. (S+H; Nine, Karl Barth, Cullmann, A.T.Robertson, J.H.Moultain).  But the R.S.V and the N.E.B., make this translation a second choice and do not understand these words of  Christ.  So also Dv. Dd. and Bt.  They agree that grammatically it is easiest understood of Christ, but expressed reservations that Paul should speak of Christ as 'God over all', since Christ holds a subordinate place to the Father.  In the Son we witness Deity in submission and obedience.  The N.E.B. gives three possible meanings.  Here dogmatism is rightly to be avoided but Paul appears to win on the crest of enthusiasm concerning their greatest privilege and the words have an abruptness if there is no statement as to Messiah's supremacy.

           

9:6-13.  The word of promise was not to Israel indiscriminately but to the spiritual seed, the children of promise, whom God called.  This paragraph can be divided:-

*   What constitutes the 'True Israel'?                  9:6-9.

*   God's freedom to call according to His will.   9:10-13.

The Word of God has not proved false, either as to His promise, nor His purpose of election.  Natural descent never did establish a claim upon God's promise and this is clearly illustrated from God's former dealings with His people.  Not everyone who is descended from Israel the patriarch, belongs to the true Israel, the heir of the promises.

           

The Word of God will not fail, but from the beginning of God's  former dealings with the Fathers He has shown discrimination and selection in the fulfilling of His purposes.  Natural descent has never been the basis upon which He fulfilled His word.  This was so in regard to Abraham's seed.  Not all his children were reckoned as children in the sense of being heirs.  Ishmael and the children of Abraham's marriage to Keturah were not heirs.  God said, "In Isaac shall thy seed be called."  In Gal.3:16 Paul understands this as fulfilled in Messiah.  Paul fully develops this theme in Galatians and establishes that they who are of the faith of Christ, are the true children. (Gal.3:7,14).  The important point illustrated in the case of Isaac is that it is the children of promise who are reckoned for the seed.  In Romans, Paul has already shown that the true Jew is not a man who is racially a Jew (2:25-29), but the man God accepts.  In chapter 4, Paul carefully establishes that descent from Abraham is based on faith.  It is such as share in his faith that constitutes the true seed.  This is for Paul, a major argument, for the universality of the Gospel.  (See chapter 4).

           

9:10-13.     First having shown that God fulfils His word to the children of promise, Paul further insists that God fulfils His purpose according to election.  'Ekloge' means election, selection, and choosing.  Observe how these verses bring together such factors as promise, election, purpose, calling, the Word of God.

           

God's choice of Jacob established beyond doubt that human merit of works do not determine God's choice, but that God exercises perfect freedom when He calls a man.  The possibility that human merit determined God's choice was excluded for God's Word came to Rebecca before the twins were born, declaring that the younger was preferred to the elder.  It also becomes clear God's choosing is always accompanied by no-choosing, His accepting by a rejection. (Barth).  It is said that Esau was foreordained to eternal damnation.  The immediate context is God's choice of a line of succession for the fulfilment of His promise.  The point that Paul desires to make is that God's merciful action in calling the Gentiles is consistent with the principle of election illustrated in Israel's own history.  God never did base His mercy on human merit and His merciful election of men is independent of any claim by birth, worth or  works.  This was so from the very beginning.

           

9:13.     Compare Mal.1:2-3.  Garvie says, "hatred" describes not the Divine feeling towards individuals, Jacob and Esau, but the historical destinies of the two peoples, Judah and Edom.  This is true of the prophecy of Malachi, however, Paul's chief point is that God fulfil His purpose in choosing and calling men without regard to any personal worth or claim in the persons themselves.  Esau, by nature, had a certain claim, as the firstborn.

           

9:14-18.     There is no unrighteousness in God's dealings with men.  Paul quotes the words of Ex.33:19.  They are God's words to Moses, in which God asserts His sovereign freedom in dispensing mercy.  God exercises His sovereign power in dispensing mercy, not in ruthlessly destroying.  This points to the largeness of the Divine mercy.  In this whole discussion mercy is the word that Paul keeps in the foreground.  God's sovereignty is seen especially in the mercifulness of His dealings with men.  Mercy ('eleos') is the keyword of these three chapters.  There are none who deserve mercy but God shows mercy according to His sovereign will.  The justness of His action cannot be challenged.  Men cannot measure the Divine sovereignty by any yardstick of human merit.

           

9:17-18.     God's right to show mercy according to His sovereign will and purpose, is exemplified also by His right to withhold mercy and to harden whom He will.  God's sovereignty is not to be called into account by men, but is absolute and free.

           

The Scripture (personified) says (present tense) to Pharaoh (Ex.9:16), "I have raised you up for this purpose."  God brought forth Pharaoh on the stage of the world to demonstrate His power in him, and to make known His Name in all the earth, especially His mercy, displayed in the Exodus.  But if God in saving His people hardened Pharaoh's heart, then it marks God's entire freedom in the display of His mercy.  It is not fitting to introduce here the question of Pharaoh's eternal destiny, but the role he fulfils on the plane of history.  The possibility of final repentance is not excluded.  It must also be remembered that while God hardened Pharaoh's heart, Pharaoh hardened his own heart.  (See Ex.7:3, 32; 9:34).  God punished Pharaoh by hardening his heart which was already hardened against God.  But the main thing that Paul insists on is the sovereignty of God's action, and what He does is always just, and if He hardens a man, it is because the man has refused His mercy, and stands in the way of its outflow to others.

           

9:19-26.     The Divine sovereignty in mercy and in judgment.

           

Paul anticipates an opponent who argues, "If God hardens the hearts of men, why does He still find fault?  For who can resist God's power to harden?  If it is the will of God to overthrow a man, how can he withstand God's will?  If our disobedience promotes the Divine purpose, is it then really disobedience?  Paul will not allow that a man can challenge what God does.

           

The Parable of the Potter and the Clay is intended to prove that the creature has no right to argue with the Creator.  The parable should not be forced to bear a meaning beyond this meaning.  If for a moment Paul makes use of such a parable to affirm God's sovereign right to dispose as He chooses, he then hastens to speak upon God's endurance and longsuffering.

           

There are vessels of wrath upon whom He will, to show His wrath.  But even this assertion is in the form of a supposition and the idea is this:  Let us suppose God wills to show His wrath, what answer can you make?  Then to remove more fully any room for complaint against God's action in showing wrath, Paul insists that God endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath.  This implies that there had been opportunity for repentance.  It does not say that God fits the vessel of wrath for destruction.  Men prepare themselves for destruction, but men cannot fit themselves for glory.  The vessels of mercy as such as God has afore prepared for His glory.

           

9:24.     Paul now applies his argument to the actual situation.  Christians are the vessels of mercy who God has called and God has called us, not only from the Jews, but also from the Gentiles.  The problem behind the whole discussion is the rejection of the Jews, and the bringing in of  the Gentiles.

           

9:25-26.  That the Gentiles should become vessels of His mercy is attested by the Old Testament.  In Hosea 2:23; 1:6-10, it is declared that Israel's privileges shall become that of the Gentiles.

           

9:27-29.     The Old Testament is equally clear as to Israel's rejection.  Only a remnant should be saved.  (See Isa.10:22).  The Lord of Hosts had dealt severely with them, and except for a small remnant, they had become like Sodom and Gommorah.  (See Isa.1:9).

           

Conclusion.     The ninth chapter has been the centre of much controversy.  Extreme Calvinists have built upon it the eternal predestination of some to heaven and others to hell.  The true intention of the chapter is to indicate the manner in which God has fulfilled His word of promise.  The problem arises from Israel's rejection of the Gospel, and its reception by the Gentiles.  The fact clearly emerges that the unique claims of the Jews cannot restrict the richness of God's mercy to the Gentiles.

           

Second Part.    9:30 - 10:21.  Israel stumbled through unbelief, though they had every opportunity to believe the Gospel.

           

Paul appeals to the Old Testament for evidence that their disobedience sprang from unbelief.  They missed the way because they refused to receive righteousness on the principle of faith alone.  It is agreed that there is no salvation without righteousness but they thought the Divine acquittal might be earned by works.  It is rather God's gift to those that believe.

           

The coming Messiah had proved a stumbling block to Israel.  In their pursuit of righteousness they stumbled over this stone, but they would not have stumbled if they had faith.  He who has faith in Christ, is not put to shame.

           

The A.V., very interestingly ends this chapter with "whosoever."