"Trust the Plan"

Romans 9:1-18

English Standard Version (Chapter 9)

9 I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—

2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.

4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.

5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,

7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.

9 For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.”

10 And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac,

11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—

12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”

13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!

15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”

18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

“The Potter Has a Plan”

When a potter is about to make a vessel you must not imagine that he takes up the mere clay and puts it on the wheel and then leaves it to chance as to what shall be made of it. No, he has his plan. Before he sits down to the labor, he knows what kind of vessel he is about to make.So it is with our Divine Potter who is in heaven. He takes the poor sinner as a mass of clay; he puts him on the wheel, and as that wheel revolves the potter looks and sees in that clay a future something that does not appear to the vessel, but only appears to the great Workman’s eyes. We may truly say of each of us who know the Lord that “what we will be has not yet been revealed” (1 John 3:2), and what we shall be never will appear until we shall see Christ as he is and be like him.The Potter, however, knows what we are to be. Our Father who is in heaven will not be deceived at last as to what he will make of his people. He has a plan, and that plan I think I may read to you in these few words—he will present us “not having a spot or wrinkle or any such thing” (Eph 5:27).

Romans 9-11 Subject Matter

Romans (1. The Justice of Rejection (9:1–29)

At the beginning of chap. 3 the question was raised about what advantage there was in being a Jew (v. 1). It was occasioned by the previous paragraph, which established that mere membership in the Jewish nation was insufficient to warrant God’s praise. To be a Jew one had to be one inwardly. Real circumcision was inward and accomplished by the Spirit, not outward obedience to a written code. In fact, the entire second chapter of Romans undermined any confidence that Paul’s readers might have had that on the basis of their national identity they would receive favored treatment from God. The obvious question was what benefit there was in being a Jew. Paul started to answer the question in 3:2 but then returned to the major theme of showing that all people, regardless of their national origin, are under the condemnation of sin. It is only now in chap. 9 that we find a full answer to the earlier question. Chapters 9–11 discuss the subject of God’s righteousness in view of his apparent rejection of the Jewish nation.

The People of God—vv. 1-5 (Don’t forget who you are)

1. Concern—vv. 1–2. Paul had a great sorrow for the Jews. Christ had this same sorrow—Luke 13:34. His heart was broken as He wept over the city—Luke 19:41.

2. Compassion—v. 3. Paul was willing to lose his salvation if it would save his people. Cf. Exod. 32:32; Matt. 9:36.

3. Chosen—v. 4. “They are Jews and are the people God chose for Himself. He shared His shining greatness with them and gave them His Law and a way to worship. They have His promises”—NLT.

4. Christ—v. 5. Great spiritual leaders were forefathers of these Jewish people. Christ was of Jewish descent—Matt. 1:1; Isa. 7:14; 9:6.

Paul took special pains to let his readers know how deeply concerned he was about his kinsmen of the Jewish race. Were he to forget his roots and feel no pain for the spiritual state of his fellow countrymen, his integrity as an apostle to the Gentiles could have been called into question. What he was about to say was absolutely true. He spoke the truth “in Christ,” that is, in the presence of and accountable to the one who in his very nature is truth (John 14:6). Paul’s conscience, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, assured him that he was speaking the truth. The conscience of those outside of Christ, while faulty, is nevertheless their best guide for conduct. But the believer has the privilege of a conscience informed by the Holy Spirit. Only then does conscience become a reliable guide for moral conduct. Paul was burdened with a great weight of sorrow. His heart was continually in anguish for his Jewish family. In fact, he could almost wish himself cursed by God and cut off from Christ if that would in some way benefit his kinsmen by race. Paul was not speaking of excommunication from the church but of final and fatal separation from Christ in the age to come. That, of course, would not be possible, but as Kuss comments, “One cannot measure the speech of the heart with the rules of logic.”

As Israelites, Paul’s ethnic forbearers had a heritage rich with spiritual blessings (v. 4). Paul listed seven historic prerogatives that God had given to Israel. The privileges of sonship belonged to them. God commanded Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel was his “firstborn son” (Exod 4:22; cf. Hos 11:1). The splendor of the divine presence (the “shekinah of God”) accompanied them throughout their desert journeys (Exod 13:21; 16:7, 10). God had established covenants with them (Gen 15:18; Exod 19:5) and given them the law (Ps 147:19). The regulations for worship in the temple had been entrusted to them (Heb 9:1). Their sacred literature was rich with the promises of God (e.g., Gen 12:7; Isa 9:6–7). They were descendants of the great patriarchs whose moral authority and influence provided leadership for the Jewish tribes before they became a nation (Rom 9:5). And what’s more, it is from them that the human ancestry of Christ is traced (1:3). The latter phrases describe Christ as “God over all, forever praised!” The NIV follows the punctuation that places a comma before the final statement and understands it as a relative clause with “Christ” as the antecedent. Other translations use a full stop instead of a comma, which separates the final statement and makes it refer not to Christ but to God the Father. The NEB has, “May God, supreme above all, be blessed for ever!” (cf. GNB, RSV, NAB, Moffatt, Goodspeed). The NRSV has reversed the position of the RSV and translates, “From them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever.” This reading of the text clearly affirms the deity of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Promises of God—vv. 6-13 (God did not forget you)

1. Plan—v. 6. Not all Jews have a part in God’s plan and promises.

2. Promise—vv. 7–8. “Not all of Abraham’s family are children of God. God told Abraham, ‘Only the family of Isaac will be called your family’ (Gen. 21:9–12). This means that children born to Abraham are not all children of God. Only those that are born because of God’s promise to Abraham are His children”—NLT.

3. Prophecy—vv. 9–13

a) Supernatural—v. 9. The prophecy of a son to Abraham and Sarah was fulfilled as God promised—Gen. 18:10.

b) Scripture—vv. 10–11. Rebecca had two sons (Esau and Jacob). God knew what kind of men they would be before they were born.

c) Service—vv. 12–13. The elder would serve the younger—Gen. 25:23; Mal. 1:2, 13. Jacob represents God’s chosen people. Esau represents those not serving God.

In this paragraph Paul showed that while God had not abandoned his purpose in electing the nation Israel, a distinction must be made between the physical descendants of Abraham and the children of promise. They were not one and the same. The “word” of God that had not failed was his promise to bless Israel. But not everyone descended from the patriarch Israel belonged to Israel the people of God. Nor because they have descended from Abraham are they necessarily Abraham’s children (cf. Rom 2:28–29; cf. Gal 6:16). On the contrary, as it is written in Gen 21:12, “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you” (NRSV). This means that it will be the children who are born in fulfillment of the promise, and not those born in the course of nature, who will be regarded as Abraham’s true descendants. The promise to Abraham was that about a year later the Lord would return and Sarah would have a son (Gen 18:10, 14). Isaac, not Ishmael, was the child of promise. As God chose Isaac rather than Ishmael, so also does he now choose to bless those who by placing their faith in Christ become the true children of Abraham. Spiritual kinship, not ethnic origin, determined who was a true Israelite. The modern counterpart to this truth is that the blessings of salvation extend only to those who are right with God through genuine faith in Jesus Christ. The visible church includes many who belong to “Ishmael,” but salvation belongs only to “Israelites” who belong to the line of “Isaac.” God has not turned his back on the nation Israel; he has simply clarified what it means to be a true child of Abraham.

At this point a Jewish antagonist might have questioned Paul’s argument on the basis that Ishmael, as compared with Isaac, was not a true son of Abraham. His mother was Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah. So Paul strengthened his case by bringing in the account of the two sons of Rebekah. In this case there could be no question of legitimacy. Not only did Jacob and Esau have the same mother and father, they were twins as well. Even before they were born or had done anything either good or bad, Rebekah was told that the older would serve the younger (Gen 25:23). In his sovereignty God determined that was the way it would be. This confirms the divine purpose that election depends not upon what we may do but upon God’s calling. Neither national heritage nor personal merit has anything to do with the sovereign freedom of God in assigning priority. This accords with the testimony of Scripture, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Mal 1:2–3). This should not be interpreted to mean that God actually hated Esau. The strong contrast is a Semitic idiom that heightens the comparison by stating it in absolute terms.Paul was not building a case for salvation that in no way involves the consent of the individual. Nor was he teaching double predestination. Rather he was arguing that the exclusion of so many Jews from the family of God did not constitute a failure on God’s part to maintain his covenant relationship with Israel. He had not broken his promise to the descendants of Abraham.

The Plan of God—vv. 14-18 (God is faithful and just)

1. Purity—v. 14. Is God unfair? Of course not! He is righteous in all His dealings—Ps. 119:137.

2. Purpose—v. 15. “I will have lovingkindness and loving-pity for anyone I want to” (Exod. 33:19; NLT).

3. Personality—v. 16. God gives gifts or chooses people according to His foreknowledge and the yielding of the person.

4. Plan—v. 17. God used Pharaoh to carry out His work—Exod. 9:16.

5. Pleasure—v. 18. God’s will is above our understanding—Isa. 55:8.

Paul then anticipated another objection. If God elected with sovereign freedom, then was he not guilty of injustice? May we not infer that in choosing Jacob, God was unfair to Esau?19 The Greek text makes clear that Paul expected a negative response. “Not at all!” God is not unjust in his actions. As Jehoshaphat told the judges of the Southern Kingdom, “With the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality” (2 Chr 19:7). God bestows mercy on whom he chooses to bestow mercy and has compassion on whom he chooses to have compassion (Exod 33:19). The point is that God’s favors are not determined by anyone or anything outside of himself. God’s purpose in election rests not upon human will (thelō in v. 16 can express desire or purpose) or effort (a participle from trechō, “run”) but upon divine mercy. Although God elects with sovereign freedom, it does not follow that Israel had nothing to do with their rejection. Later in the chapter we will learn that Israel failed to attain a right standing with God because they pursued it on the basis of works (vv. 30–32). The sovereignty of God does not set aside human responsibility.Paul used the case of Pharaoh (an individual rather than a nation as in vv. 7–13) to demonstrate that God withholds mercy and hardens whomever he chooses (cf. Exod 7:3; 14:17). Pharaoh, that implacable enemy of God’s people, was raised to the position of king of Egypt so that God might display in him the evidence of his power (Exod 9:16). Although Pharaoh’s rise to a position of authority undoubtedly had a secular interpretation, God was at work in his career, bringing him to prominence. God did it in order to display his power by bringing Pharaoh to his knees and so that his character as the one who delivered the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage might be known throughout the world.

Verse 18 summarizes the argument. It provides the principle of divine action on which the preceding events were based. God shows mercy as he chooses, and he hardens people’s hearts as he chooses. He is sovereign in all that he does. Although the text says repeatedly, however, that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it also stresses that Pharaoh hardened himself (cf. Exod 7:13–14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34–35). Morris notes that “neither here nor anywhere else is God said to harden anyone who had not first hardened himself.”God’s freedom to do that which is in accordance with his will does not sit well with many moderns whose philosophy of life stems from a combination of relativism and belief in personal autonomy. For the Christian, however, it is important to build one’s theology not on personal perceptions of what ought to be but upon the biblical revelation of the character and purpose of God. The unalterable nature of God and the absolute justice of his actions are undoubtedly more difficult for the twentieth-century reader to understand than for those who lived in the biblical period, but a proper hermeneutic calls for us to interpret Scripture in its historical context. While its meaning will never change, how it is to be applied will depend upon the context of the reader. To fault God for showing mercy to some while hardening others is to require that he conform to our fallible and arbitrary concept of justice.

The Christian life is a life of faith. We may not understand. We may question. But we must trust His Word, will and way. Great men of God were great because of their faith—Heb. 11. They didn’t understand, but they obeyed. God’s plan is best for you. Let Him work in your life.