51) God's Word Has Not Failed
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Pastoral Reminder: Head Heart Hands
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Please turn with me to chapter 9 of the book of Romans.
6 Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 8 That is, 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. 9 For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son. 10 And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father Isaac. 11 For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand—12 not from works but from the one who calls—she was told, The older will serve the younger. 13 As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.
We looked last week as Paul has turned his attention to the Jews as he addresses questions that have arisen through out his teaching on the the gospel. A gospel that he is not ashamed of and that he wants all to hear and believe including his fellow Jews that have not believed in its message.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
The main theme of the entire letter is summarized in this verse. There is a message. A Gospel message. A message of good news and in it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
Who is it that is saved? Everyone who believes
Who is the message too? first to the Jew and they to the Greek
What is in this message? The righteousness of God revealed by faith.
For the righteous will live by faith. This is the dominate theme through this letter, salvation is by faith for those who believe God saves his people. And he does so, not based on any work of the person, but on the will and pleasure of God himself. Through the sacrificial offering of Jesus and the completed and continued work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the righteous.
He has shown that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and the universal guilt before God for iniquity and transgression of the law.
And that by faith a person is credited with God’s righteousness through Jesus crucified as God showed his love as the atoning sacrifice. By this a person is justified before God and made alive by the Spirit of God that dwells in the believer and works out the new life in the Spirit. Leading God’s children securing them for the final glory that awaits all of his children.
Finally concluding that no one and no thing can separate a saint from the love of God. In the progression of his argument he has pushed against the understanding of the Jews. They come to this place where Paul said that though there are great advantages to the nation of Israel, those advantages do not in themselves secure them for salvation.
1 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience testifies to me through the Holy Spirit—2 that 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 benefit of my brothers and sisters, my own flesh and blood. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises. 5 The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.
If the Israelites have recieved the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the temple service, the promises and from their ancestors even Jesus has come from them. If all of this is true but they are found to be in such great unbelief, so much so, they crucified the messiah that was from their own people.
Paul, “has Israel been separated from the love of God?” You said that couldn’t happen.
The next three chapters answer this question. In Chapter 11 he will asks these very questions.
Has God rejected his people? And have they stumbled so as to fall? Did God act and reject Israel or did they fall so far that they separated themselves from God? To both questions he answers Absolutely Not.
But as he works too those two final questions on Israel, he addresses their false understanding of who is Israel and who are the children of God.
Who is Israel?
Who is Israel?
6 Now it is not as though the word of God has failed, because not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 8 That is, 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.
Their understanding of the promises and the advantages that the nation of Israel had come to be tainted with false ideas and misunderstanding of what God has done. The first conclusion that Paul is correcting is the conclusion that God’s word has failed.
Did the message of God to the Israelites fail? He uses a word that means to fall. Has God’s word fallen? Or failed to be accomplished. If God made these promises to Israel and they are now being recieved by the Gentiles and not only Israel, then has God’s word proven to have fallen.
In this case, Paul does not answer with a rhetorical question. He hits this one right on the head. God’s word has not failed. It has accomplished exactly what he said it would. The issue is in their understanding of who are the recipients of the promises.
They looked to the security that if they were from the line of Jacob and therefore of Isreal that they would all equally receive the promises. But Paul says that not all who descended from Israel are Israel.
The Jews were a people who took great strides know their heritage. From what tribe they came from. Anna in the temple was from Asher. Paul was from Benjamin. Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Barnabas the tribe of Levi. And Jesus from the Tribe of Judah.
But all of the Jews would look back to Jacob. To them to be an Israelite ment to be a descendant of Jacob. They looked at the continuation of the promises to Abraham to Jacob as promises that God would never go back on.
13 The Lord was standing there beside him, saying, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your offspring the land on which you are lying. 14 Your offspring will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out toward the west, the east, the north, and the south. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
These promises were reiterated to Jacob and would include his descendants as recipients of the promises.
9 God appeared to Jacob again after he returned from Paddan-aram, and he blessed him. 10 God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; you will no longer be named Jacob, but your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel. 11 God also said to him, “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply. A nation, indeed an assembly of nations, will come from you, and kings will descend from you. 12 I will give to you the land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac. And I will give the land to your future descendants.”
Jacob would have 12 sons that would be the the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. Jacob, his sons, and the 70 plus people in their combined household entered into Egypt and stayed for 400 years becoming a nation of people in the millions. They leave Egypt and receive the Law and the Mosaic Covenant, which was given to the nation.
They look at these promises and many more and had come to trust that any one who was a descendant of Jacob would receive them. This was their comfort and their assurance. If they were of physical descent they would be saved.
But Paul corrects them on this. It isn’t those that were born of Jacob physically that will be justified but those who are born of promise.
7 Neither is it the case that all of Abraham’s children are his descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac.
Look back to Abraham. He was given the first promises that were reconfirmed to Jacob. Look at Abraham. Not all of his descendants were covered in the covalent promises. It was only those offspring that are traced through Isaac.
Abraham had at least 8 sons. The first was Ishmael, the second was Isaac and he would have at least 6 others later. But of the many sons, one was chosen to be the line of offspring that the promises would be traced.
12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and about your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac, 13 and I will also make a nation of the slave’s son because he is your offspring.”
Though God would still make a nation through Ishmael it would not be the line that God had chosen. Paul even tells them why.
8 That is, 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.
Who are God’s children? They are the not the children of physical descent but the children of promise. All of Abraham’s children were not automatically considered as his offspring in relation to the promise. The word for considered means to be counted. Counted in the household of God, as his children, where their names are written in the book of life. It is those that have been written in the book that are counted among the family. And thus are the Israel that has been given the promises and will receive the promises.
Who are Chosen?
Who are Chosen?
The example of Isaac
The example of Isaac
Paul turns to the son of promise.
9 For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son.
Paul points them to the promise to Abraham that they would have a son.
10 The Lord said, “I will certainly come back to you in about a year’s time, and your wife Sarah will have a son!” Now Sarah was listening at the entrance of the tent behind him. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old and getting on in years. Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. 12 So she laughed to herself: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I have delight?” 13 But the Lord asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Can I really have a baby when I’m old?’ 14 Is anything impossible for the Lord? At the appointed time I will come back to you, and in about a year she will have a son.”
In their 90s. Past the time to have children. Sarah was unable to have children but believed that it would happen. For by faith she believed in the promise that a son would come.
11 By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful. 12 Therefore, from one man—in fact, from one as good as dead—came offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and as innumerable as the grains of sand along the seashore.
And once that son had arrived God commanded Abraham to sacrifice him. Abraham believed in the promise so much that he knew that when he had done what God had commanded that God would still not break his promise.
17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. He received the promises and yet he was offering his one and only son, 18 the one to whom it had been said, Your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 19 He considered God to be able even to raise someone from the dead; therefore, he received him back, figuratively speaking.
Abraham has been chosen by God for the purposes of God and to make him into a great nation and to fulfill the promises that he had given him.
18 Abraham is to become a great and powerful nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through him. 19 For I have chosen him so that he will command his children and his house after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just. This is how the Lord will fulfill to Abraham what he promised him.”
His point is that after he chose Abraham from all of the people of the earth to be his people. He also chose one of Abraham’s sons to be the line of that promise. It wasn’t the first born Ishmael that should have recieved the blessing but the son of promise. It was through the son that God chose that are the true offspring of Abraham. But maybe that is just because Ishmael was born of the slave Hagar and not Sarah.
The Example of Jacob
The Example of Jacob
10 And not only that, but Rebekah conceived children through one man, our father Isaac.
Isaac had only one wife Rebekah and she only had two sons. Turning to Gen 25 we read.
19 These are the family records of Isaac son of Abraham. Abraham fathered Isaac. 20 Isaac was forty years old when he took as his wife Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan-aram and sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife because she was childless. The Lord was receptive to his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived. 22 But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord. 23 And the Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb; two peoples will come from you and be separated. One people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger. 24 When her time came to give birth, there were indeed twins in her womb. 25 The first one came out red-looking, covered with hair like a fur coat, and they named him Esau. 26 After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel with his hand. So he was named Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.
The Lord answered her inquiry of God and he told her that her children would not follow normal order of who would be the father of each generation. It would not be the first son but the second that have been chosen.
11 For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand—12 not from works but from the one who calls—she was told, The older will serve the younger. 13 As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.
Paul points out at before they were born, before they were even capable of action. God chose Jacob. This election, this choosing is not based on any work that they had commited. It was not based on their wise words. Or heroic actions. It is not because of great prayer or piety. It the simple truth that God chose. So that God’s purpose according to election might stand.
The next point he makes it that the promise was lived out just as God had said. That the older would serve the younger.
Esau by right as the older had the birthright and would receive the greater inheritance, and the future family leadership. But Esau would sell his birthright for a bowel of stew and would loose his blessing through deception of Rebekah and Jacob. As the older will serve the younger.
The last point he makes is a quote from Malachi. I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau. At the end of the Old Testament before the 400 years of silence that occured before Jesus is born. We see this book written after the exile.
One would think, that as a nation if God had forewarned that if you do not follow me, a foreign people would come and take you away and after an amount of time God would bring you back. You might think that the people would have learned that God is faithful but what we find in Malachi is hard hearted people.
Paul points out the comparison of God’s proven love for Jacob in comparison to Esau.
1 A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi. 2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, 3 but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.” 4 Though Edom says, “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever. 5 Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’
Even in Israel’s defiled worship, irreverence, groaning and disloyalty. God has still shown that for over 1500 years, from Jacob’s birth to the return from exile that God has shown great love for this nation as his chosen people. They have rejected God but he has not left them for he chose them not based on works but based on his own purpose.
Has God’s Word Failed?
Has God’s Word Failed?
Paul’s point is that one cannot trust in their ancestry to be considered one who is a child of God. That not all of the descendants of Isreal are Israel. For he has chosen a people to himself from the crowd. He has maintained his remnant that are found even in the darkest of times.
16 At that time those who feared the Lord spoke to one another. The Lord took notice and listened. So a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the Lord and had high regard for his name. 17 “They will be mine,” says the Lord of Armies, “my own possession on the day I am preparing. I will have compassion on them as a man has compassion on his son who serves him.
The children of God cannot be separated from the love of God. Paul is explaining that God has chosen his people from among the people. They will be known as chosen, by their faith. They are people who trust and believe in the promises of God and his work, not their own works.
In chapter 1 the righteous will live by faith, first to the Jew and also to the Greek.
In chapter 4 he point out that it was by Abraham’s faith as he is the father of all who believe.
9 Is this blessing only for the circumcised, then? Or is it also for the uncircumcised? For we say, Faith was credited to Abraham for righteousness. 10 In what way, then, was it credited—while he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? It was not while he was circumcised, but uncircumcised. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while still uncircumcised. This was to make him the father of all who believe but are not circumcised, so that righteousness may be credited to them also. 12 And he became the father of the circumcised, who are not only circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith our father Abraham had while he was still uncircumcised.
The promises of God given to Abraham and to his offspring
13 For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14 If those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made empty and the promise nullified, 15 because the law produces wrath. And where there is no law, there is no transgression. 16 This is why the promise is by faith, so that it may be according to grace, to guarantee it to all the descendants—not only to the one who is of the law but also to the one who is of Abraham’s faith. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: I have made you the father of many nations— in the presence of the God in whom he believed, the one who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.
And how would he be the father of many nations, through the child of promise.
18 He believed, hoping against hope, so that he became the father of many nations according to what had been spoken: So will your descendants be. 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 because he was fully convinced that what God had promised, he was also able to do. 22 Therefore, it was credited to him for righteousness. 23 Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, 24 but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
The promises of God to Abraham had not passed to all of his descendants but to those who also believe in God as he did. Those that trust and obey God. This promise goes through Isaac and to Jacob or Israel. The promise is not then fully expanded to all physical children but continues on its planned course, through those who believe. Paul is starting this argument with the clarification that Israel has stumbled and trusted in their works instead of the one who promises.
30 What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith. 31 But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law. 32 Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.
God’s word has not failed. The Jews that believe and have faith in his promises are the ones that have been reconciled to God and are credited with righteousness and have become the children of God. For God cannot go back on his word.
28 Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of the patriarchs, 29 since God’s gracious gifts and calling are irrevocable.
Conclusions
Conclusions
The main theme of this chapter is verse eight.
8 That is, 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.
In this passage he asserts God sovereign choice. The truth of this will lead to other questions about God’s justice, mercy, and Israel’s current and final state. But all of this is to demonstrate God’s unchanging promises, his saving grace, wonderful mercy, perfect justice, and faithful love. Demonstrated on the cross and through which the righteousness of God is credited to those that believe.
And how the Gentiles relate to the promises to the Israelites. Israel had put their assurance in the wrong places. False assurance of being in the right group. Having the right association. Denomination. Nationality. Family. Race. ...
We must not fall into the same trap.
9 He has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
We too have become the children of God through these promises and we to must know that God’s word does not fail. That he is choosing a remnant throughout the people of the world to be brought into these promises.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Blessing/Benediction
8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—9 not from works, so that no one can boast.
