Romans 9

Romans 9:1

II. DISPENSATIONAL: THE GOSPEL AND ISRAEL (Chaps. 9-11) A. Israel’s past (Chap. 9) In chapters 9-11 we hear Paul’s answer to the Jewish objector who asks: Does the gospel, by promising salvation to Gentiles as well as Jews, mean that God has broken His promises to His earthly people, the Jews? Paul’s answer covers Israel’s past (chap. 9), its present (chap. 10), and its future (chap. 11). This section contains a great emphasis on divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Romans 9 is one of the key passages in the Bible on the sovereign election of God. The next chapter sets forth the balancing truththe responsibility of manwith equal vigor.

EXCURSUS ON DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY AND HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY When we say that God is sovereign, we mean that He is in charge of the universe and that He can do as He pleases. In saying that, however, we know that, because He is God, He will never do anything wrong, unjust, or unrighteous. Therefore, to say that God is sovereign is merely to allow God to be God. We should not be afraid of this truth or apologize for it. It is a glorious truth and should cause us to worship. In His sovereignty, God has elected or chosen certain individuals to belong to Himself. But the same Bible that teaches God’s sovereign election also teaches human responsibility. While it is true that God elects people to salvation, it is also true they must choose to be saved by a definite act of the will. The divine side of salvation is seen in the words, All that the Father gives Me will come to Me. The human side is found in the words that follow: and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out (Joh_6:37). We rejoice, as believers, that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph_1:4).

But we believe just as surely that whoever will may take of the water of life freely (Rev_22:17). D. L. Moody illustrated the two truths this way: When we come to the door of salvation, we see the invitation overhead, Whosoever will may come. When we pass through, we look back and see the words Elect according to the foreknowledge of God above the door. Thus the truth of man’s responsibility faces people as they come to the door of salvation.

The truth of sovereign election is a family truth for those who have already entered. How can God choose individuals to belong to Himself and at the same time make a bona fide offer of salvation to all people everywhere? How can we reconcile these two truths? The fact is that we cannot. To the human mind they are in conflict. But the Bible teaches both doctrines, and so we should believe them, content to know that the difficulty lies in our minds and not in God’s. These twin truths are like two parallel lines that meet only in infinity. Some have tried to reconcile sovereign election and human responsibility by saying that God foreknew who would trust the Savior and that those are the ones whom He elected to be saved. They base this on Rom_8:29 (whom He foreknew He also predestined) and 1Pe_1:2 (elect according to the foreknowledge of God). But this overlooks the fact that God’s foreknowledge is determinative. It is not just that He knows in advance who will trust the Savior, but that He predetermines this result by drawing certain individuals to Himself. Although God chooses some men to be saved, He never chooses anyone to be damned. To put it another way, though the Bible teaches election, it never teaches divine reprobation. But someone may object, If God elects some to blessing, then He necessarily elects others to destruction. But that is not true! The whole human race was doomed to destruction by its own sin and not by any arbitrary decree of God. If God allowed everyone to go to helland He could justly have done thatpeople would be getting exactly what they deserved.

The question is, Does the sovereign Lord have a right to stoop down and select a handful of otherwise-doomed people to be a bride for His Son? The answer, of course, is that He does. So what it boils down to is this: if people are lost, it is because of their own sin and rebellion; if people are saved, it is because of the sovereign, electing grace of God. To the man who is saved, the subject of God’s sovereign choice should be the cause of unceasing wonder. The believer looks around and sees people with better characters, better personalities, and better dispositions than his own, and asks, Why did the Lord choose me?Why was I made to hear Thy voice, And enter while there’s room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come? Isaac Watts The truth of election should not be used by the unsaved for excusing their unbelief. They must not say, If I’m not elect, there’s nothing I can do about it. The only way they can ever know they are elect is by repenting of their sins and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior (1Th_1:4-7). Neither should the truth of election be used by Christians to excuse a lack of evangelistic zeal. We must not say, If they’re elect, they’ll be saved anyway. Only God knows who the elect are. We are commanded to preach the gospel to all the world, for God’s offer of salvation is a genuine invitation to all people. People reject the gospel because of the hardness of their hearts, and not because God’s universal invitation is insincere. There are two dangers to be avoided in connection with this subject. The first is to hold only one side of the truthfor example, to believe in God’s sovereign election and to deny that man has any responsible choice in connection with his salvation. The other danger is to overemphasize one truth at the expense of the other. The scriptural approach is to believe in God’s sovereign election and to believe with equal force in human responsibility. Only in this way can a person hold these doctrines in their proper biblical balance. Now let us turn to Romans 9 and follow the beloved apostle as he unfolds this subject. to overemphasize one truth at the expense of the other. The scriptural approach is to believe in God’s sovereign election and to believe with equal force in human responsibility. Only in this way can a person hold these doctrines in their proper biblical balance. Now let us turn to Romans 9 and follow the beloved apostle as he unfolds this subject.

9:1 In insisting that salvation is for Gentiles as well as for Jews, Paul gave the appearance of being a traitor, a turncoat, a renegade as far as Israel was concerned. So he here protests his deep devotion to the Jewish people by using a solemn oath. He speaks the truth. He is not lying. His conscience, in fellowship with the Holy Spirit, attests the truth of what he is saying. 9:2 When he thinks first of Israel’s glorious calling, and now of its rejection by God because it rejected the Messiah, his heart is filled with great sorrow and continual grief. 9:3 He could even wish himself accursed or cut off from Christ if through the forfeiting of his own salvation his Jewish brothers might be saved. In this strong statement of self-abnegation, we sense the highest form of human lovethat which constrains a man to lay down his life for his friends (Joh_15:13). And we feel the enormous burden which a converted Jew experiences for the conversion of his countrymen. It reminds us of Moses’ prayer for his people: Yet now, if You will forgive their sinbut if not, I pray, blot me out of Your book which You have written (Exo_32:32). 9:4 As Paul weeps over his people, their glorious privileges pass in review. They are Israelites, members of God’s ancient chosen people. God had adopted that nation to be His son (Exo_4:22) and delivered His people out of Egypt (Hos_11:1). He was a father to Israel (Deu_14:1), and Ephraim was His firstborn (Jer_31:9). (Ephraim is used here as another name for the nation of Israel.) The Shekinah or glory cloud symbolized God’s presence in their midst, guiding and protecting them. It was with Israel, not with the Gentiles, that God made the covenants. It was with Israel, for example, that He made the Palestinian Covenant, promising them the land from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates (Gen_15:18). And it is with Israel that He will yet ratify the New Covenant, promising the perpetuity, future conversion, and blessing of a repentant Israel (Jer_31:31-40).It was to Israel that the law was given. They and they alone were its recipients. The elaborate rituals and service of God connected with the tabernacle and the temple were given to Israel, as well as the priesthood. In addition to the covenants mentioned above, God made innumerable promises to Israel of protection, peace, and prosperity. 9:5 The Jewish people rightfully claim the patriarchs as their ownAbraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve sons of Jacob. These were the forefathers of the nation. And they had the greatest privilege of allthe Messiah is an Israelite, as far as His human descent is concerned, though He is also the Sovereign of the universe, the eternally blessed God. Here we have a positive statement of the deity and humanity of the Savior. (Some Bible versions weaken the force of this verse. For example, the RSV reads, … and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed for ever.

Amen. The Greek does not rule out the RSV here from a strictly grammatical viewpoint, but spiritual discernment in comparing Scripture with Scripture favors the reading in the KJV, NKJV, and other conservative translations.) 9:6 The apostle now faces up to a serious theological problem. If God made promises to Israel as His chosen earthly people, how can this be squared with Israel’s present rejection and with the Gentiles being brought into the place of blessing? Paul insists that this does not indicate any breach of promise on God’s part. He goes on to show that God has always had a sovereign election process based upon promise and not just on lineal descent. Just because a person is born into the nation of Israel does not mean that he is an heir to the promises. Within the nation of Israel, God has a true, believing remnant. 9:7 Not all Abraham’s offspring are counted as his children. Ishmael, for example, was of the seed of Abraham. But the line of promise came through Isaac, not through Ishmael. The promise of God was, In Isaac your seed shall be called (Gen_21:12). As we pointed out in the notes on Rom_4:12, the Lord Jesus made this same interesting distinction when talking with the unbelieving Jews in Joh_8:33-39. They said to Him, We are Abraham’s descendants … (v. 33).

Jesus admitted this, saying, I know you are Abraham’s descendants (v. 37). But when they said, Abraham is our father, the Lord replied, If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham (v. 39). In other words, they were descended from Abraham, but they didn’t have Abraham’s faith and therefore they were not his spiritual children. 9:8 It is not physical descent that counts. The true Israel consists of those Jews who were selected by God and to whom He made some specific promise, marking them out as His children. We see this principle of sovereign election in the cases of Isaac and Jacob. 9:9 God appeared to Abraham, promising that He would return at the appointed time and that Sarah would have a son. That son, of course, was Isaac. He was truly a child of promise and a child of supernatural birth. 9:10 Another case of sovereign election is found in the case of Jacob. Isaac and Rebecca were the parents, of course. But Rebecca was carrying two babies, not one. 9:11 A pronouncement was made before the children were ever born. This pronouncement could not, therefore have had anything to do with works of merit by either child. It was entirely a matter of God’s choice, based on His own will and not on the character or attainments of the subjects. The purpose of God according to election means His determination to distribute His favors according to His sovereign will and good pleasure. This verse, incidentally, disproves the idea that God’s choice of Jacob was based on His foreknowledge of what Jacob would do. It specifically says that it was not made on the basis of works!9:12 God’s decision was that the older would serve the younger. Esau would have a subservient place to Jacob. The latter was chosen to earthly glory and privilege. Esau was the firstborn of the twin brothers and ordinarily would have had the honors and privileges associated with that position. But God’s selection passed him by and rested on Jacob. 9:13 To further enforce God’s sovereignty in choosing, Paul quotes Mal_1:2-3 : Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. Here God is speaking of the two nations, Israel and Edom, of which Jacob and Esau were heads. God marked out Israel as the nation to which He promised the Messiah and the messianic kingdom. Edom received no such promise. Instead, its mountains and heritage were laid waste for the jackals of the wilderness (Mal_1:3; see also Jer_49:17-18; Eze_35:7-9). Although it is true that the quotation from Mal_1:2-3 describes God’s dealings with nations rather than individuals, it is used to support His sovereign right to choose individuals as well. The words Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated must be understood in the light of the sovereign decree of God that stated, The older shall serve the younger. The preference for Jacob is interpreted as an act of love, whereas bypassing Esau is seen as hatred by comparison. It is not that God hated Esau with a harsh, vindictive animosity, but only that He loved Esau less than Jacob, as seen by His sovereign selection of Jacob. This passage refers to earthly blessings, and not to eternal life. God’s hatred of Edom doesn’t mean that individual Edomites can’t be saved, any more than His love of Israel means that individual Jews don’t need to be saved. (Note also that Esau did receive some earthly blessings, as he himself testified in Gen_33:9.) 9:14 The apostle correctly anticipated that his teaching on sovereign election would stir up all kinds of objections. People still accuse God of unfairness. They say that if He chooses some, then He thereby necessarily damns the rest. They argue that if God has settled everything in advance, then there’s nothing anyone can do about it, and God is unrighteous for condemning people. Paul hotly denies any possibility of unrighteousness on God’s part. But instead of watering down God’s sovereignty in order to make it more palatable to these objectors, he proceeds to restate it more vigorously and without apology. 9:15 He first quotes God’s word to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion (see Exo_33:19). Who can say that the Most High, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not have the right to show mercy and compassion? All people are condemned by their own sin and unbelief. If left to themselves, they would all perish. In addition to extending a genuine gospel invitation to all people, God chooses some of these condemned people to be special objects of His grace. But this does not mean that He arbitrarily chooses the others to be condemned. They are already condemned because they are lifelong sinners and have rejected the gospel. Those who are chosen can thank God for His grace. Those who are lost have no one to blame but themselves. 9:16 The conclusion, then, is that the ultimate destiny of men or of nations does not rest in the strength of their will or in the power of their exertions, but rather in the mercy of God. When Paul says that it is not of him who wills, he does not mean that a person’s will is not involved in his salvation. The gospel invitation is clearly directed to a person’s will, as shown in Rev_22:17 : Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Jesus exposed the unbelieving Jews as being unwilling to come to Him (Joh_5:40). When Paul says, nor of him who runs, he does not deny that we must strive to enter the narrow gate (Luk_13:24). A certain amount of spiritual earnestness and willingness are necessary. But man’s will and man’s running are not the primary, determining factors: salvation is of the Lord. Morgan says: No willing on our part, no running on our own, can procure for us the salvation we need, or enable us to enter into the blessings it provides. … Of ourselves we shall have no will for salvation, and shall make no effort toward it. Everything of human salvation begins in God. 9:17 God’s sovereignty is seen not only in showing mercy to some but in hardening others. Pharaoh is cited as an example. There is no suggestion here that the Egyptian monarch was doomed from the time of his birth. What happened was this. In adult life he proved to be wicked, cruel, and extremely stubborn. In spite of the most solemn warnings he kept hardening his heart. God could have destroyed him instantly, but He didn’t. Instead, God preserved him alive in order that He might display His power in him, and that through him God’s name might be known worldwide. 9:18 Pharaoh repeatedly hardened his own heart, and after each of these times God additionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart as a judgment upon him. The same sun that melts ice hardens clay. The same sun that bleaches cloth tans the skin. The same God who shows mercy to the brokenhearted also hardens the impenitent. Grace rejected is grace denied. God has the right to show mercy to whomever He wishes, and to harden whomever He wishes. But because He is God, He never acts unjustly. 9:19 Paul’s insistence on God’s right to do what He pleases raises the objection that, if that is so, He shouldn’t find fault with anyone, since no one has successfully resisted His will. To the objector, man is a helpless pawn on the divine chessboard. Nothing he can do or say will change his fate. 9:20 The apostle first rebukes the insolence of any creature who dares to find fault with his Creator. Finite man, loaded down with sin, ignorance, and weakness, is in no position to talk back to God or question the wisdom or justice of His ways. 9:21 Then Paul uses the illustration of the potter and the clay to vindicate the sovereignty of God. The potter comes into his shop one day and sees a pile of formless clay on the floor. He picks up a handful of clay, puts it on his wheel, and fashions a beautiful vessel. Does he have a right to do that? The potter, of course, is God. The clay is sinful, lost humanity. If the potter left it alone, it would all be sent to hell. He would be absolutely just and fair if He left it alone. But instead He sovereignly selects a handful of sinners, saves them by His grace, and conforms them to the image of His Son. Does He have the right to do that? Remember, He is not arbitrarily dooming others to hell. They are already doomed by their own willfulness and unbelief. God has the absolute power and authority to make a vessel for honor with some of the clay and another for dishonor with some. In a situation where everyone is unworthy, He can bestow His blessings where He chooses and withhold them whenever He wishes. Where all are undeserving, Barnes writes, the utmost that can be demanded is that He should not treat any with injustice.9:22 Paul pictures God, the great Potter, as facing a seeming conflict of interests. On the one hand, He wishes to show His wrath and exhibit His power in punishing sin. But on the other hand He desires to bear patiently with vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. It is the contrast between the righteous severity of God in the first place, and His merciful longsuffering in the second.

And the argument is, If God would be justified in punishing the wicked immediately but, instead of that, shows great patience with them, who can find fault with Him?Notice carefully the phrase vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. Vessels of wrath are those whose sins make them subject to God’s wrath. They are prepared for destruction by their own sin, disobedience, and rebellion, and not by some arbitrary decree of God. 9:23 Who can object if God wishes to make known the riches of His glory to people to whom He desires to show mercypeople whom He had selected beforehand for eternal glory? Here C. R. Erdman’s comment seems especially helpful: God’s sovereignty is never exercised in condemning men who ought to be saved, but rather it has resulted in the salvation of men who ought to be lost. God does not prepare vessels of wrath for destruction, but He does prepare vessels of mercy for glory. 9:24 Paul identifies the vessels of mercy as those of us who are Christians, whom God called from both Jewish and Gentile worlds. This lays the foundation for much that is to followthe setting aside of all but a remnant of the nation of Israel and the call of the Gentiles to a place of privilege. 9:25 The apostle quotes two verses from Hosea to show that the call of the Gentiles should not have come as a surprise to the Jews. The first is Hos_2:23 : I will call them My people, who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved. Now actually in Hosea these words refer to Israel and not to the Gentiles. They look forward to the time when Israel will be restored as God’s people and as His beloved. But when Paul quotes them here in Romans he applies them to the call of the Gentiles. What right does Paul have to make such a radical change? The answer is that the Holy Spirit who inspired the words in the first place has the right to reinterpret or reapply them later. 9:26 The second verse is Hos_1:10 : And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, You are not My people, There they shall be called sons of the living God. Once again, in its OT setting this verse is not speaking about the Gentiles but describing Israel’s future restoration to God’s favor. Yet Paul applies it to God’s acknowledgment of the Gentiles as His sons. This is another illustration of the fact that when the Holy Spirit quotes verses from the OT in the NT, He can rightfully apply them as He wishes. 9:27 The rejection of all but a remnant of Israel is discussed in 9:27-29. Isaiah predicted that only a minority of the children of Israel would be saved, even though the nation itself might grow to tremendous numbers (Isa_10:22). 9:28 When Isaiah said, He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth (Isa_10:23), he was referring to the Babylonian invasion of Palestine and Israel’s subsequent exile. The work was God’s work of judgment. In quoting these words Paul is saying that what had happened to Israel in the past could and would happen again in his day. 9:29 As Isaiah said before (in an earlier part of his prophecy): Unless the LORD of the armies of heaven had left some survivors, Israel would have been wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa_1:9). 9:30 What, Paul asks, is the conclusion of all this as far as this present Church Age is concerned? The first conclusion is that Gentiles, who characteristically did not pursue righteousness but rather wickedness, and who certainly didn’t pursue a righteousness of their own making, have found righteousness through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Not all Gentiles, of course, but only those who believed in Christ were justified. 9:31 Israel, on the other hand, which sought justification on the basis of law-keeping, never found a law by which they might obtain righteousness.9:32 The reason is clear. They refused to believe that justification is by faith in Christ, but went on stubbornly trying to work out their own righteousness by personal merit. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, Christ Jesus the Lord. 9:33 This is exactly what the Lord foretold through Isaiah. The Messiah’s coming to Jerusalem would have a twofold effect. To some people He would prove to be a stumbling stone and rock of offense (Isa_8:14). Others would believe on Him and find no reason for shame, offense, or disappointment (Isa_28:16).