Recap and Background

Welcome to this second episode in Series 3 as we study the book of Romans together. In this third series, Paul is addressing a question which was very important to him and very important to the church in Rome but a question which some modern Christians don’t think very much about - the question of the place of the Jews in the purpose of God. In the last episode, I introduced this theme, which will be the theme of Paul’s writing from Romans 9 through to the end of Romans 11. It was a very important question at the time, because the Early Church was struggling to come to terms with the fact that most Jewish people rejected the Messiah. This started with their religious leaders at the time of Jesus - the High Priest and the Jewish ruling council, the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees. They rejected Jesus as a false messiah and handed him over to the Romans for execution, in the hope that this would put an end to his message. Of course, this didn’t happen. Jesus rose from the dead.

The Apostles and the first believers in Jerusalem were all Jewish. Then the Church spread out into the surrounding world and, by the time Paul is writing the letter to the Romans, most Christians, and most churches, were Gentile or non-Jewish churches. Most Jewish people had rejected the Christian message directly and clearly. They felt it was against their faith, their race and their history. This created a real problem for Paul. He needed to explain how this had come about and what God was doing in this process. By the end of chapter 11, we will get a much fuller understanding of Paul’s thinking and, in fact, he has an insight into the longer-term future which is remarkable and exciting. But we are not there yet!

Paul was trying to address the attitude in some of the Gentile Christians in the Roman church, which was hostile to the Jews and dismissing them as God’s people in the past. Many Gentile Christians in Rome appeared to be uninterested in the Old Testament and the history of how God had worked in the centuries before Christ came. Paul is addressing these issues.

In the last episode, he indicated his passionate desire for the Jewish people to be saved. He went on to explain all the amazing privileges and resources they had: the priesthood, the Temple, the Jewish worship, the Law of Moses, the Jewish monarchy, the prophetic promises and the fact that Jesus, the Messiah, was from a Jewish background. So many things that God had given the Jewish people.

Israel or Israel?

Paul now comes to deal with the fundamental problem. Why is it that most Jews have not followed God’s will and not accepted the Messiah?

“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.”

Romans 9:6, NIV

This is the key to understanding Paul’s thinking. What does Paul mean? It seems to be a bit of a mysterious statement. He is drawing a distinction between two ways of describing the Jewish people. The first way is to describe them by their race, or their ethnicity - Israel as a people. But he is saying not all Israel, as a people, are Israel in a spiritual sense - the people who have chosen to follow God. In other words, within the nation of Israel there are two groups. All of them are ethnically Jewish, some of them choose to believe God wholeheartedly and some of them don’t. There is a division within the nation of Israel.

Let me use a modern analogy to describe something similar. Imagine a man in the United Kingdom, in my country, by the name of John Smith. This is a common name for British people. He formed a business selling goods in the marketplace and was very successful. He had three sons who he invited to join him in the business when they became adults. He wanted to change the name of the business from John Smith to John Smith and Sons, when the time came. He offered for his three sons to work in his business. One of them said, ‘Yes, I will come and join you, and we will work together until you retire.’ But the other two said, ‘No, we want to leave the area. We are not going to be involved in the business. We are going to go and have our own jobs and our own families and we are not going to be involved in the business.’ So, one son is not only biologically the son of his father, he is in his father’s business. The other two, although biologically connected, are not part of Smith and Son, as the business became known. They put themselves out of the privilege they were offered.

That is the idea that Paul has in mind here, ’not all Israel are Israel’. Some of the Jewish people decided to opt out of the privilege of the nation of Israel, by choosing not to obey God, not to believe his covenants, and ultimately not to believe in the Messiah when he came.

The Promised Son

After this explanation in verse 6, Paul gives a couple of examples of this distinction.

“Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this is how the promise was stated: ‘At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.’”

Romans 9:7-9, NIV

In Paul’s explanations, he keeps quoting Old Testament verses, and retelling the story in summary. But what is the story that he is retelling here? God spoke to Abraham when he was calling him to the Promised Land, and calling him to be the father of the nation, and said to Abraham that he would have a special, promised son. At the time that God spoke to Abraham, he and his wife Sarah were very elderly and were unable to have children, and had never had children of their own. She was past the age of childbearing when God made this promise. Abraham and Sarah struggled to believe in the promise. It seemed like an impossibility to them. They made a decision that maybe God was going to fulfil this promise, not through Sarah as the mother, but through another wife. So, Abraham took a second wife, Hagar, and she gave birth to a son called Ishmael. Later on, God revealed that it was going to be definitely through Sarah that the promised child would come. Thirteen years after Ishmael was born, Sarah’s son, Isaac, was miraculously born.

Paul is thinking about this distinction and saying, that even in those days, God was making a difference between the true people of Israel, through Isaac, and the other children of Abraham. There was a division in the people even at the very first step.

Jacob and Esau

He then goes on to give another example of this difference, speaking of the next generation and Isaac’s wife, Rebekah. God was building nation through this family and so, something unusual happened with Rebekah.

“Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad - in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls - she was told, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’”

Romans 9:10-13, NIV

Here we have a remarkable story, as told in the book of Genesis, that Rebekah was pregnant with twin boys. The first to emerge from the womb was Esau, the second was Jacob. It was traditional in ancient culture that the firstborn child would be the one who would have the priority, and would inherit the rights of the firstborn and family leadership in the next generation. But God had spoken, in Genesis 25: 23, about what was going to happen in this situation:

“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”

Genesis 25:23, NIV

God spoke to Rebekah and Isaac and said, in this case the chosen one for God’s purposes is the younger child, Jacob, the second of the twins: ‘The older will serve the younger.’ And so it was, that God chose to build the nation of Israel through Jacob, rather than through Esau. In Malachi 1: 2, it says,

“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his hill country into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

The language of love and hate is used here to speak of choice. God chose Jacob rather than Esau. Esau became the forefather of a tribe in the Middle East known as the Edomites, who later became opponents of the people of Israel. This is what Malachi 1 refers to, many hundreds of years later. A choice had been made; a distinction within the nation, between those who are biologically part of the nation, and those who are chosen for God’s purposes, between Isaac and Ishmael and between Jacob and Esau.

Paul is using these two examples to illustrate the principle of verse 6, ‘not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.’ There is a choice going on and a distinction between those who are blessed and those who are not blessed. Ultimately, later on in Jewish history, it will be a choice between those who decide to follow God and those who don’t.

The Israelites and Pharaoh

Romans 9:14 - 18 concludes this section

“What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: ‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

Romans 9:14-18, NIV

Is God unjust to select certain people for his purposes and overlook or reject others? That is the difficult question that Paul is addressing here. He defends God’s right to make these choices, and he uses two more Old Testament examples. In 9:14 he quotes from the book of Exodus, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’

Paul is inviting us to think about the story that lies behind that statement when the Israelites were gathered at Mount Sinai in the desert, having left Egypt, before they entered the Promised Land. Moses was literally receiving the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Sinai as the people rebelled. They were waiting for him for a long time and got frustrated and bored. They said to Moses’ brother, Aaron, ‘We need some gods to worship like the gods of Egypt. We don’t want to wait for this law that will be coming to us at some time in the future.’ They created an image out of gold that they took from their jewellery - a beautiful image like a calf that was very similar to those that they saw being worshipped in Egypt, and they rebelled. Moses came down the mountain and confronted them, and broke up the calf. He melted it down and all the gold was turned into powder dust and mixed with water so that it disappeared. Immediately after this, God said, ‘I’ll have mercy on whom I have mercy,’ referring back to the fact that despite this rebellion, he was still going to have mercy. God chose to spare Israel from total judgment because of his long-term purposes for them.

Paul then goes on to talk about the Pharaoh of Egypt, who resisted the Jewish desire to get out of slavery in Egypt, and did everything in his power, according to the book of Exodus, to prevent them leaving the country. Paul quotes here God’s purposes in raising up Pharaoh and allowing him to be the person who resists as this was to show God’s greater power when he finally makes a way for the Jews to leave the country, as the Red Sea parts and they miraculously get out, despite Pharaoh’s refusal. God’s purpose was to use Pharaoh’s resistance to bring about a miraculous escape from Egypt through the Red Sea.

The Conclusion

Paul comes to his conclusion in verse 18:

”Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.”

In the two examples, he has described an act of mercy. The Israelites didn’t deserve mercy after they rebelled against Moses at Mount Sinai and they created the golden calf but God gave them mercy because he had a purpose for them that was going to be fulfilled. God allows Pharaoh’s hostile attitude to get stronger and he even strengthens his hostile attitude towards the Jewish people and becomes so resistant to them leaving, so that it can only happen by miraculous means.

Paul is saying that God ultimately has the right as the sovereign God, to choose to be merciful to some people and allow other people to be used as instruments of his judgment. Underlying this idea is Paul’s teaching that we saw very clearly in Romans 3, and it came to a conclusion in Romans 3: 9, that all people are sinners; whoever they are, whatever their ethnic background, everyone has become sinners, have become those who live independently of God and rebel against him in their hearts. Therefore, God, in one sense, doesn’t owe us anything. Paul basically says that God is sovereign. He wants to be merciful. If he chooses some people to work through, we can’t really argue against that, because none of us deserve to be those chosen people. If he chooses some people like Pharaoh, who was already totally opposed to him, as an instrument of his power, by strengthening his negative ideas, then God is entirely free to do that. God, according to Paul, is not unjust because we don’t deserve his salvation. We are sinners; we are absolutely lost without his grace.

This is a complex argument of Paul and it takes care to understand what he is saying. But let us go back to the distinction within Israel. That is the distinction we are going to come back to in the next episode, and the distinction that really matters for Paul’s argument. Romans 9: 6, ‘It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.’ Paul says there will be a distinction in the people of Israel all the way through history. Those who are ethnically Jewish will not necessarily follow the ways of God. In the next episode, Paul is going to describe those Jews who follow in the ways of God as a ‘remnant’, a small part of the nation and he is going to say that we need to look carefully at the remnant, because God always keeps a faithful remnant of Jewish people. Paul understood himself to be one of the faithful remnant who obeyed God, when the message of the gospel was given to the Jewish people.

As we come to the end of this episode, we recognise that we are in a complicated part of Paul’s teaching. Romans 9 is a chapter that many Bible teachers will largely avoid because it is difficult to understand Paul’s reasoning in places. Sometimes we don’t like the way his argument moves.

But I am proposing that we need to take on board wholeheartedly what Paul is saying and will find it very helpful once we have come to the conclusion of his argument.

Reflections

As we pause at this point and think about the significance of the passage that we have read today in this episode, and indeed of the previous passage back to Romans 9: 1, what things can we take to heart and learn?

First of all, thinking of the nation of Israel, we can understand that, from the Christian point of view, the history of the Jewish people is very important to Paul and to us. This passage is a very good example. All the way through the book of Romans we have constant references to Jewish history and what God did in the Old Testament period. Therefore, as we think about the Old Testament, it is important as Christians that we read it and do our best to understand the Old Testament. It is not part of the story which is now forgotten; it is part of the story that we need to have in order to understand what God is doing in the Church.

Jewish history in the Old Testament really matters. It matters also particularly because we need to remember that Jesus was a Jew himself - a faithful Jew in his worship, as well as being the Messiah.

Another reflection that is important for us to think about is God’s choice as it applies to us. We see Paul emphasising that ultimately God has the right to make whatever choices he wants, in terms of his salvation plan and also in terms of the responsibilities that he gives to people. So, for Christians, as we are believers, we must also be aware that God chooses who are leaders, which spiritual gifts he gives to individual people, which opportunities we have to serve him, in which places. He has chosen you as a Christian to be part of the body of Christ, and to fulfil a function that will be helpful to other people. This isn’t always what we would like to do. But God chooses us, puts us in a place and asks us to be fruitful according to the things that he chooses for us to do. He gives us opportunity to serve him and we are most fruitful if we take hold of the opportunities that he gives us. He gave the Jewish people opportunities to serve him all the way through their history. Some said, “Yes, we’ll serve you faithfully.” Some said, “No.” Some were fruitful, and some ultimately were not fruitful and ended up outside God’s purposes. As Christians, we need to know that

God fits his Church together in a way in which he is sovereign, and he calls people to different functions and roles at different times. That applies to you and it applies to me and it is worth reflecting, as we finish this section, ‘What is God saying to me about what he has called me to do? What has he chosen for me to do in my Christian life?’ The more we follow those things, the more fruitful we will be. The story continues in our next episode.