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About Jesus Steve Sweetman Chapter 9 God’s
Sovereign Choice (ch. 9:1-29) 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.
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. 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
proof even more 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 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".
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
says, “...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 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.
One of these verses is found right here in Romans 9:5.
The others are; John 1:1, John 1:18, John 20:28, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8,
2 Peter 1:1, 1 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 Got
promised In
verse 6 Paul assures his readers that God’s Word did not fail.
Anything God does, can’t fail. One
might think because 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 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 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 10 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”. (Rom 9:12, from 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. 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”. (ch. 9:16)
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
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.
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
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 The
story is seen in Exodus 4 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. Therefore
God will have mercy on anyone He so chooses, and He will harden anyone He so
chooses (ch. 9:18). 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 then why should God blame us for anything”, Paul asks.
He hardens those He wants. We
have no say in the matter. Why blame
us? He is the one who chooses, and
His choice doesn’t depend on what we do. Paul’s
response is that we, the created ones, should not question the one who has
created us. He has the right, since
He has made us, to choose some for “noble purposes and some for common
purposes”. That sounds logical
enough, doesn‘t it. I
think we can understand these verses concerning God's choices in the context of
ministry, or God's call on certain people to do certain things for Him.
I don't think Paul is thinking in terms of salvation, that is, God
choosing some to be saved and others not to be saved.
We also should see this in terms of God calling the Gentiles in His
family as a whole. Paul isn't
speaking of calling individual Gentiles to salvation. The
simplest explanation for verses 22 and 23 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.
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”. (ch.9:25)
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 We
need to note in chapter 9 that God’s sovereign choice talked about is
concerning 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 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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