Romans 9
God’s Redemption and Israel’s Rejection
As Paul thinks about the greatness of the salvation God has provided, he is filled with sorrow, because his own people, the Jews, have rejected it. Paul now considers whether God’s plan has failed and whether there is any hope for Israel. - Don Fleming
Paul tries to deal with one of the most bewildering problems that the Church has to solve--the problem of the Jews. They were God's chosen people; they had had a unique place in God's purposes; and yet when God's Son had come into the world they had rejected him and crucified him. How is this tragic paradox to be explained? That is the problem with which Paul seeks to deal in these chapters. - William Barclay
I Have Great Sorrow for My People
Vs. 2 - I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
Paul begins chapter 9 with his own anguish over his fellow Israelites who don’t think that Jesus is the Messiah. - Tim Mackie
Vs. 3 - For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood.
Paul had just celebrated that Christians could not be condemned for sin or separated from God’s love because of the gospel. But now, in dramatic contrast, he stated that he would be willing to accept separation if it could somehow mean that his people would accept Jesus.
God had chosen Israel as a people through whom He could bless the entire world. He had given them special revelation and covenants and even the lineage of the Messiah. So Paul mourned here that so many of his people had rejected Jesus.
The Word of God Has Not Failed
Vs. 6 - Now it is not as though the word of God has failed,
Israel had failed to carry out God’s purpose for her thus far, and consequently, had suffered His discipline. It looked as though the word that God had spoken concerning Israel’s purpose had failed. - Thomas Constable
Vs. 7 - because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants.
Vs. 8 - it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring.
This reference to God’s choice of Isaac over Ishmael is the first of three Old Testament illustrations of God’s sovereignty. The other two are Jacob and Esau (Romans 9:10-13), and Pharaoh (Romans 9:14-18). - Thomas Constable
The question Paul is answering here is this: “Why was Israel chosen by God if she has now rejected His plan?” These old testament illustrations serve to communicate the truth that, over the process of time and in the mysterious dance of sovereignty and free will, God’s covenant family has always included only people of faith.
In the same way that God chose to accomplish His redemptive plan through Isaac instead of Ishmael and through Jacob instead of Esau, He has now chosen to work through the Gentiles also. That is obviously not to say that every member of Isaac’s or Jacob’s family was included or that all Gentiles will believe. What all members of God’s covenant family share in common is that they were both selected and surrendered.
Even in the Old Testament there was a distinction between Jews who were Jews only by heritage and those who embraced Abraham’s faith from the heart. The covenant God had with Israel, Paul says, was never about ethnic identity. It was about trust in his promises. - JD Greear
Paul shows us how God has always selected a subset from Abraham’s family to carry on the line of promise (a remnant). And his point is that now that line of promise is carried on by those who follow Jesus. - Tim Mackie
Is There Injustice with God?
Absolutely Not
Vs. 14 - What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
In this section, Paul addressed an accusation some could bring that God had been unjust in how He hadn’t included everyone in His redemptive plan. But Paul answered that God does not deal with humanity on the basis of justice, but rather mercy.
The Tension of Free Will and Divine Sovereignty
Vs. 16 - So then, it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy.
Vs. 19 - You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does he still find fault? For who resists his will?”
The objection Paul introduces here seems to be “Why would God show mercy to some and not to all? How can God judge Israel if He is the One Who rejected them?”
In this very complicated section of his letter, Paul explained the mind-bending concept that both the sovereignty of God and the free will of man are at play in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan for both the Jews and Gentiles. God makes choices, but His choices are not arbitrary. God discriminates, but it’s consistently based on a foreknowledge of faith.
Paul argued that God is completely justified in His plan to show mercy on the repentant and wrath on the unrepentant. God made a choice to reject. But it’s obvious that those He rejected were those who had rejected Him. His glory is revealed in saving those who receive Him and condemning those who reject Him, regardless of ethnicity.
Vs. 20 - who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”
To answer the objection he raised, Paul quoted Isaiah (29:16, 45:9, 64:8) and Jeremiah (18:1-6) who used the potter/clay metaphor to describe the absurdity of a created thing questioning the processes of its creator. In His infinite wisdom, God chose grace rather than law, mercy rather than merit.
Vs. 22-23 - ...what if God, wanting to display his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did this to make known the riches of his glory on objects of mercy that he prepared beforehand for glory...
It’s very interesting to note that Paul described both election (vs. 23) and faith (vs. 31) when describing God’s plan to redeem Israel. Barclay notes that, where many would diverge to one or the other, Paul seemed comfortable in the tension.
Paradoxically, Paul holds that, though the rejection of the Jews was the work of God, it need never have happened. He cannot get rid of the eternal paradox--nor does he desire to--that at one and the same time all is of God and man has free-will. The fundamental mistake of the Jews was that they tried to get into a right relationship with God through their own efforts. They tried to earn salvation; whereas the Gentiles simply accepted the offer of God in perfect trust. - William Barclay
Also The Gentiles
Vs. 25 - I will call Not My People, My People
In vs. 25, Paul pulls back the curtain a little farther and shows us how God actually had a merciful, good purpose in allowing Israel to reject him. Israel’s rejection of the Messiah, he explains, allowed us Gentiles to find him. He quotes Hosea’s prediction of God opening up the door of salvation to the Gentiles through the rejection of the Jews (Hosea 1:10, 2:23). - JD Greear
Paul quoted Hosea and Isaiah to reinforce his point that God’s covenant family had always been a multi-ethnic remnant, a family of Jewish and Gentile believers.
Israel Stumbled over Jesus
Vs. 31 - But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law. Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works.
Paul summarized his answers here. So many Jews had missed mercy because they had insisted upon meriting it. God had sent the Messiah as He had promised. But because of their unwillingness to believe, He had become, as Isaiah prophesied (Isaiah 8:14; 28:16), a stone of stumbling for them.
Whatever God’s purposes may be, the Jews are still responsible for their own loss. They cannot say God has rejected them. They have rejected God. Gentiles, who have no law, are justified by faith, and Jews can be too, if they will believe instead of trying to win God’s favor through keeping the law. - Don Fleming
