At the end of chapter 8 Paul has just written: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? … No one, for in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that … nothing in all creation, can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39)
Despite being surrounded in this life by threats—both by demonic powers and by hostile humans with authority to imprison and kill—believers are inseparable from the love of God the Father mediated through his Son. What a reassuring word!
Yet the objection must immediately have popped into Paul's mind—as indeed he may have heard it many times in his evangelizing—“How can I be sure that God will not reject me in the end as he apparently has done to his people Israel?” This question is legitimate and requires an answer before Paul can go on to the subject of how believers should live eschatologically in the present age as they await the dawning of the future one. Paul gives his answer in three densely argued chapters, 9-11. He quotes more scripture from the OT in these three chapters than in the other 13 chapters of the book, which shows how important he considers the question. Is Israel now lost forever?
9:1-5 Paul’s anguish over his people’s rejection of the messiah
“I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.” (Romans 9:1-5 NIV)
Explanation:
The first thing Paul wants to be made clear is that he doesn't consider this question an academic one. He is by no means detached and coolly objective. He agonizes over the present spiritual state of the majority of his people.
This anguish was real, not rhetorical. If many of the people living in the Mediterranean area in Paul's day felt a loyalty to their particular ethnic groups, Paul's feelings were more than just pride in blood relatives. For Israel was not just Paul's people: they were God's chosen people, the only people on the face of the earth that God has chosen to live among, to teach, lead, and protect. To them he had given the sacred mission of being a blessing to all the nations of the earth.
Israel's privileges were real, and recognized by thousands of gentiles in Rome, both God-fearers and those who merely admired from afar.
Israel's zeal which he mentions in 10:1-4, was well-known personally to Paul: (1) through his Pharisaic training (see Phil. 31), (2) through the opposition and persecution he experienced while preaching the gospel.
In the OT, zeal for God was often associated with the punishment of idolatrous Israelites, which pre-Christian Paul had considered all the Jewish Christians to be, since they worshiped Jesus as God.
This Jewish zeal in many cases showed a sincere desire for God, but a misguided one, as Paul knew from his own pre-Christian experience. Thus he prays for their enlightenment.
The wishing himself accursed was an illusion to Moses' similar prayer to God on behalf of idolatrous Israel at Mt. Sinai (Ex. 32). Paul knew such an offer was nonsense, as Moses knew it at the time. You cannot save someone else by proxy. Everyone must choose and believe for himself.
Application:
How eager is today's world for God? We criticize their weird superstitious neo-pagan attitudes and actions, but are these not also signs of a misguided zeal? Should we not feel a similar anguish for them, knowing that there but for the grace of God go we? Are these not also our 'people'?
What should be our feelings about the lost people around us? Should they not be the same as God's own? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son”
Paul longed for the salvation of gentiles, but he had a special ache for his own people, just as you may have a special ache for the salvation of members of your family. The intensity of that family love did not make Paul change his view of what was true. They were his family, but without Christ they were lost. So Paul did for his family what you and I must do for ours: (1) he loved them, (2) he prayed for them, and (3) he spoke truth to them in love.
9:6-13 God’s promise has not failed
“It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel [i.e., Jacob] are Israel. Nor because they are Abraham's descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, 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 9:6-13 NIV)
Explanation:
The OT is full of promises made by God to the nation of Israel. To be sure, he disciplined the nation when it sinned—just think of the many examples in the Book of Judges alone. But there was always room for corporate repentance, after which the people as a group was restored. And always, even during punishment, they were God's people. The final chapters of the Book of Deuteronomy encapsulates God's way of operating with Israel.
Furthermore, there were promises made to the patriarchs that God would bless the nations through their descendants, their “seed”—the same word that Paul uses here, translated “offspring” in the NIV. In his letter to the Galatians Paul had interpreted that promise in as referring to Jesus as the seed. But here in Romans he has interpreted it differently, as referring to “the children of the promise”, i.e., the believing remnant in Israel throughout the OT period, and all believers today.
Paul uses the term “Israel” in two ways in his writings, and you have to look carefully at the context to be sure how he is using the word. In most of the uses in Romans 9-11 he uses it in a physical and ethnic sense, of all those of Jewish birth and religious practice, whether believers in Jesus or not. But in a few places—including here—he uses it in a special sense of those Jews who constitute the “remnant” of the faithful throughout Israel's history.
I believe the clue to this more restricted meaning of “Israel” even in the OT itself for the faithful remnant lies in the story in Genesis 32 of the origin of the name.2 It was given to the patriarch Jacob after he had wrestled with God and when he saw that he could not prevail by his own strength, surrendered, simply clinging to God, pleading that God have mercy on him and “bless” him. The text tells us that as a result of his behavior he was called by God “Israel”. It was that attitude on the part of the faithful remnant that characterizes the true “Israel of God”—despairing of prevailing upon God by their own efforts at “righteousness”, and simply begging for his grace and mercy.
Paul juxtaposes the two uses of the name “Israel” here to make it clear that God's promises of salvation in the OT were made to the believing remnant. He will return to this subject in Romans 11:1-6, where he includes himself and the other Jewish followers of Jesus in that remnant.
Here he uses the twin sons of Isaac as an example of how not all the physical children in the line of the patriarchs were “children of promise”. And God made a choice before they were born, which proves that the choice was not based upon the character of either boy.
Application:
Did God save you and not your sister because he saw you had better character? Or because you were naturally more devoted to God? Or because you were smarter than your brother or your best friend down the street? Or because he knew how you would turn out better than other choices He might make? No, he chose the weakest and the worst, so that it might be crystal clear that all was due to his grace and power.
“God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, …, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. … in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” (1Corinthians 1:27-31).What he achieves in us is to His Glory, not ours.
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