Romans 9:1-13 Click here for Bible Verses
Hi GAMErs!
Today’s passage is Romans 9:1-13. Let’s go!
Romans 9:1-3 (NIV)
1 I speak the truth in Christ–I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit–
2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3 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,
On verses 1-3: Here Paul expresses how much it hurts his heart to see that many of his own fellow Israelites have chosen to reject Jesus as their Saviour (Messiah) and how much he wishes that they would know Jesus personally.
Likewise, when you have a growing relationship with God through Jesus Christ, you will naturally have a heart to see those closest to you and people in your community know Jesus as well. Take a minute even now to pray for those closest to you and people in your community who don’t know Jesus personally.
Romans 9:4 (NIV)
4 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.
On verse 4: If you include Paul’s mention of the patriarchs in verse 5, then in verses 4-5 Paul mentions 7 ways that the people of Israel have been especially blessed: (1) how God adopted them as His special children (“theirs is the adoption as sons”); (2) how they got to experience an exceptional portion of God’s presence and miracles (“theirs the divine glory”); (3) how God made various covenants especially with them; (4) how God gave them His written law; (5) how God gave them a whole system for drawing near to God and worshiping Him (“the temple worship”); (6) how God gave them all the promises we find in the Old Testament; and (7) how God gave them the patriarchs (v5), that is, the founding fathers of Israel who showed them how to live by faith. Paul laments how, despite receiving so many special privileges and blessings from God, his own people of Israel had largely rejected Jesus.
What can we learn from this? It is tragic when we receive God’s blessings but forget God’s purpose for giving us His blessings in the first place. The blessings God gives you and me are all ultimately to point us to Jesus and His love for us.
Romans 9:5 (NIV)
5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
On verse 5: Here we see a powerful statement about Jesus’ human nature as well as His divine nature. On one hand, his human ancestry can be traced through the patriarchs of Israel like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. On the other hand, Paul says that Jesus Christ “is God over all, forever praised”. As a way to avoid the conclusion that Jesus is God, some have attempted to read verse 5 differently. Instead of reading it “Christ, who is God over all, forever praised!”, they read verse 5 as “Christ, who is over all. God be forever praised!” or “Christ. God who is over all be forever praised.” But many scholars, including those who don’t even necessarily believe that Jesus is God, have submitted that the fairest reading of this verse, based on grammatical structure, sentence flow and context, is the one which identifies Christ as God.
Romans 9:6-9 (NIV)
6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.
7 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.”
8 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.
9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”
On verses 6-9: What does Paul mean when he says “not all who are descended from Israel are Israel” (Romans 9:6)? Talking about his own people, Paul means that just because you come from a Jewish background doesn’t automatically make you a child of God or, to use a Jewish term, a “son of Abraham”. That’s because becoming a true child of God, or a true son of Abraham, is not about whether you are related to Abraham naturally by blood; rather it’s about whether you have placed your faith in the same God Abraham believed in. It is our faith in God’s promise, and not our human ancestry, that makes us children of God.
To illustrate how it is faith in God’s promise that makes us God’s children, Paul brilliantly shows how in the case of Abraham and Sarah’s children, God chose Isaac, the child who was born by a miracle of faith and who was the subject of God’s promise, instead of Ishmael, his older half brother.
With this in mind, we can better understand why Paul had “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” (v2) in his heart for his fellow Israelites. For despite receiving such a rich heritage from God (which Paul describes in verses 4 and 5), many of his fellow Israelites had rejected Christ and assumed that they were already children of God just because they were blood descendants of Abraham, when that is not the case.
Likewise, just because you come from a Christian background, or your family is Christian, or you grew up going to church, or you have a general belief in God, doesn’t make you a child of God even if you say you are one. What makes you a child of God is personally having faith in Jesus Christ, that He died for your sins and rose again. As the saying goes, God does not have any grandchildren; He only has children who have a direct relationship with Him by faith in Jesus Christ.
Romans 6:10-13 (NIV)
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.
11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad–in order that God’s purpose in election might stand:
12 not by works but by him who calls–she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”
13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
On verses 10-13: Finally what are verses 10 through 13 talking about? Paul is showing that God Himself has a plan to save people. This is called the doctrine of “election” (v11), the idea that God chooses who will receive salvation.
To illustrate this, Paul references Isaac and Rebekah, and how they had two twins, Esau and Jacob. Before either twin had done anything good or bad, God had already chosen the younger twin Jacob.
Likewise, before you were born or had done anything good or bad, God already had a plan to save you from your sins, to make you His child, and to adopt you into His family through Jesus Christ. In this way, your election as a son or daughter of God was “not by works but by him who calls” (Romans 9:12). It was nothing you did to earn it.
If the doctrine of election is true, then doesn’t that mean that ultimately people don’t have a choice about whether or not to receive Jesus, and that it’s all predetermined? If so, isn’t it then unfair that God would send anyone to hell since they had no choice in the matter? I don’t think it’s that simple. Keep in mind that God’s sovereign will and our freedom to choose are two realities that the Bible recognizes. It’s a mystery to us how God’s sovereign will and our freedom to choose work together exactly, but it is safe and reasonable to believe the following:
– First, the choices we make in life are real choices and have real consequences. It matters whether we say yes to Jesus or not. It matters whether we share Jesus with others or we don’t. Though God has an overarching plan, we don’t know and cannot assume to know who God has chosen to save and who He hasn’t. All we can do is do our best to respond to God with what He has given to us, by responding in faith to Jesus and also sharing Jesus with others, knowing that all of it counts for eternity.
– Second, whereas we are bound by space and time, God is not. God is beyond space and time. Because God is outside space and time, God sees everything not just as it is today but as it was thousands of years ago and as it will be thousands of years later, all at once. We cannot know exactly how or when God elects people to be saved or at what point He takes into account the decisions we make, but we do know He does take into account our decisions.
Rather than worrying too much about how God’s sovereign will and our free will interact, we’re much better off making the best choices we can with what we have, trusting that God is working in and through it all for good. Let’s respond to Jesus with faith, and like Paul let’s passionately live our lives to lead people to Jesus Christ so that they too can respond to Jesus with faith.
Father, I pray today for those around me who don’t yet know You personally. I pray that I would be the best possible witness to them of Your saving grace and make the most of every opportunity to share Your love with them. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
