{"id":168,"date":"2012-09-02T21:06:39","date_gmt":"2012-09-02T20:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2012-09-02T21:06:39","modified_gmt":"2012-09-02T20:06:39","slug":"has-god-let-israel-down-romans-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=168","title":{"rendered":"Has God let Israel down? Romans 9"},"content":{"rendered":"

ROMANS 8: 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? \u2026. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
\nWhat wonderful promises these are! But there is just one whopping great problem for us as we come to trust them. An obstacle which may not be so obvious to us in Western Europe in the 21st Century but a problem which would have leapt out to anybody reading Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans in the first Century in the Middle East. And it was a big problem for Paul Himself. WHAT ABOUT THE JEWS?? Can we actually trust God\u2019s promises to us as Christians. Two Thousand years before Christ Abraham had received God\u2019s promises. 1500 years before Christ Moses and the nation of Israel had received the Covenant and the Law. A thousand years before Christ God\u2019s promises had been renewed to David, God\u2019s chosen King. But what about the Jews? Because in God\u2019s plan of salvation as Paul was explaining it to the Roman church, the Jews are on the sidelines, relegated to the substitutes\u2019 bench. If God\u2019s plans have actually turned away from the Jews, how can WE now trust God\u2019s promises?? This is the problem chapters 9 to 11 is there to solve.
\nWHAT ABOUT GOD\u2019s PROMISES to the Jews?
\n9\tI speak the truth in Christ\u2014I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit\u2014 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t an abstract theological problem for Paul but a deep personal tragedy for this Pharisee of the Pharisees. How did his fellow Jews, his family and his oldest friends, fit into God\u2019s plan of salvation in Jesus Christ? And the answer is \u2013 they don\u2019t!<\/p>\n

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, 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. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. <\/p>\n

Despite having received God\u2019s promises in Abraham and Moses and David, the Jews were now being treated like every other human being in God\u2019s new way of salvation, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But what about those promises, Surely the nation of Israel was God\u2019s firstborn son, they were the chosen people. They were the ones rescued in the Exodus. They had been given the promised land. They were the ones entrusted with the Law. God had sent the prophets to Israel. And for almost one thousand years, God had been worshipped in the Temple in Jerusalem.
\nSo here is the problem. If the gospel of Jesus Christ brings those blessings and more to people who are not Jews, who are not part of God\u2019s chosen people \u2013 isn\u2019t God letting the Jews down? Here is Paul\u2019s answer.<\/p>\n

SALVATION IS BASED ON GOD\u2019s PROMISES <\/p>\n

It always had been \u2013 it always would be.<\/p>\n

6 It is not as though God\u2019s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham\u2019s children. On the contrary, \u201cIt is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.\u201d 8 In other words, it is not the natural children who are God\u2019s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham\u2019s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: \u201cAt the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul is saying that God\u2019s promises have not failed and never will fail. God\u2019s promises were always intended for those who received them BY FAITH. For those individuals who believed the promises and who put their trust in God. Those who followed Abraham, \u201cwho believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness.\u201d Abraham\u2019s true children, the actual heirs to the promises, are not the natural descendants of Abraham but those who were his spiritual descendants, those who similarly put their trust in God. God HAS kept His promises to everybody who has Abraham\u2019s faith. Not only that, also remember this.<\/p>\n

SALVATION DEPENDS ON GOD\u2019s CHOICE<\/p>\n

10 Not only that, but Rebekah\u2019s children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad\u2014in order that God\u2019s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls\u2014she was told, \u201cThe older will serve the younger.\u201d 13 Just as it is written: \u201cJacob I loved, but Esau I hated.\u201d<\/p>\n

God is Sovereign. God is Almighty. God may love and forgive and accept WHOEVER He chooses. We thought about this in Romans 8.<\/p>\n

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.<\/p>\n

It is God\u2019s choice who will receive His promises \u2013 and God will never fail to honour those promises to his chosen people, those whom He foreknew and predestined and called.<\/p>\n

\u201cJacob I loved, but Esau I hated.\u201d We shouldn\u2019t be surprised that God hated Esau, who valued God\u2019s promises so little that he despised his birthright and traded it away for a bowl of porridge. The astonishing amazing thing is that God should love a lying stealing cheating rogue like Jacob \u2013 or even miserable sinners like you and me. Yet God did love Jacob \u2013 and God does choose to set his love on us! Is that unfair? Paul\u2019s answer is that
\nGOD\u2019s MERCY IS ALWAYS FAIR<\/p>\n

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, \u201cI will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.\u201d 16 It does not, therefore, depend on man\u2019s desire or effort, but on God\u2019s mercy.
\nNone of us \u2013 no human being who has ever lived – could ever earn or deserve God\u2019s love. We simply gratefully receive it! It is God\u2019s choice who receives that mercy. And God who is in his essential character perfect justice and righteousness will always choose with a fairness which we will never understand, this side of glory anyway.
\nAfter the example of God choosing Jacob and rejecting Esau, Paul takes the example of Israel and Egypt and Moses and Pharaoh.
\n 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: \u201cI raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.\u201d 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
\nThe Bible teaches us very clearly that sometimes, because of His unfathomable purposes, God actually hardens the hearts of people who face his righteous judgment bringing them to the point where they can no longer even hear his voice. This might seem unfair until we remember that without God\u2019s mercy and grace ALL OF US face his judgment. Those whose hearts God chooses to harden are no worse off than they were before. Yet is this fair? We saw back in Romans 1 that God hardens people\u2019s hearts simply by letting them God their own way.
\n18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God\u2019s invisible qualities\u2014his eternal power and divine nature\u2014have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
\n24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
\n26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.
\n28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. <\/p>\n

Human beings gave up worshipping and serving God \u2013 so He gave up on them. That is how God\u2019s judgment works.
\nGOD IS GOD!
\nThe Almighty Sovereign Creator God can do what He chooses.
\n19 One of you will say to me: \u201cThen why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?\u201d 20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? \u201cShall what is formed say to him who formed it, \u2018Why did you make me like this?\u2019 \u201d 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? <\/p>\n

Who are we to challenge God? We are only His creatures. Compared to His infinite wisdom we understand as little about God\u2019s cosmic purposes as a lump of clay understands about the potter\u2019s designs. God is Creator. He is Sovereign. He is Lord. GOD IS THE BOSS!<\/p>\n

Isaiah 55 says this. 6Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near. 7\tLet the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. 8 \u201cFor my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,\u201d declares the LORD. 9 \u201cAs the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
\nWe dare not presume to challenge God\u2019s choice or God\u2019s fairness. All that ANY of us deserve is condemnation and punishment.<\/p>\n

22 What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath\u2014prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory\u2014 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
\nGod could choose to destroy all evil here and now, and all of us miserable sinners along with it. It is only by God\u2019s grace and generosity and mercy that he spares any of us. Remember the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13.
\n24 Jesus told them another parable: \u201cThe kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
\n27 \u201cThe owner\u2019s servants came to him and said, \u2018Sir, didn\u2019t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?\u2019
\n28 \u201c \u2018An enemy did this,\u2019 he replied.
\n\u201cThe servants asked him, \u2018Do you want us to go and pull them up?\u2019
\n29 \u201c \u2018No,\u2019 he answered, \u2018because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.\u2019 \u201d \u2026.
\n37 He answered, \u201cThe one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
\n40 \u201cAs the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. <\/p>\n

It is only by God\u2019s grace that any of us are spared the final judgment.
\n 25 As he says in Hosea: \u201cI will call them \u2018my people\u2019 who are not my people; and I will call her \u2018my loved one\u2019 who is not my loved one,\u201d26 and, \u201cIt will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, \u2018You are not my people,\u2019 they will be called \u2018sons of the living God.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe nation of Israel had been spared by God from the judgment which came in the form of the Exile to Babylon. That was God\u2019s grace! Nothing to do with them being God\u2019s chosen people.
\nGOD\u2019s PROMISES ARE FOR THE FAITHFUL REMNANT
\n27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: \u201cThough the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
\nThroughout the Old Testament and the history of Israel it was always the faithful remnant who enjoyed God\u2019s blessings, not the rebellious majority. God had ALWAYS been faithful to that remnant and kept his promises to them.
\n28\tFor the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.\u201d 29 It is just as Isaiah said previously: \u201cUnless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants,
\nwe would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole world faces judgment. Those who survive will only be those who are saved by God\u2019s grace and mercy and according to His sovereign choice and promises He never breaks. It is not our place to challenge the fairness of God\u2019s election \u2013 but simply to receive His blessings with even greater humility and gratitude when we realize that there are others who will not receive the blessings which we do.<\/p>\n

SALVATION IS RECEIVED BY FAITH, NOT BY WORKS<\/p>\n

30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the \u201cstumbling stone.\u201d 33 As it is written: \u201cSee, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.\u201d
\nSo it is in God\u2019s master plan that we who are not Jews, who never searched after God\u2019s mercy, yet receive the blessings He has promised. And it grieves Paul deeply to recognize that the Jewish people miss out, NOT because God\u2019s promises failed but because the nation of Israel kept on missing the point. They kept on trying to earn God\u2019s salvation by good works, or so often simply took that salvation for granted, instead of trusting in the Rock of Ages, their own messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has not let the Jews down. The Jews let God down \u2013 they let the marvelous salvation God had promised them slip through their fingers. So those promises come to us instead, Abraham\u2019s spiritual descendants who put our trust in Jesus Christ. God\u2019s promises will never fail. God will NEVER let us down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ROMANS 8: 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger…<\/span><\/p>\n

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