Sermon Tone Analysis

Last week we began our study of Romans 9 and the whole section of Romans 9–11.

The main focus of these chapters is the question of what God has been up to with the nation of Israel.

So many of the Israelites in Paul’s day had rejected Jesus as their Messiah, and this creates a problem for the gospel Paul preached.

Paul understood that the promise of the gospel was that God would bring salvation to the entire created world through the agency of his chosen people, through the nation of Israel.

But since so many Jews in Paul’s day had rejected their own Messiah, this seems to put the entire promise of the gospel on the line.

This is a question that doesn’t seem to concern many Christians, but that’s because we have a difficult time of grasping the importance of our own history and living our lives in light of that story.

But if you’re going to understand the gospel and the God of the Bible, you’re going to have to be familiar with the Bible’s story, which is centered on the history of Israel.

One of the reasons why Christians have a hard time understanding God and the gospel is because we are not familiar with God’s story.

The more acquainted we become with the biblical story, the more acquainted we will become with God and what God is up to in our world today.

Yes, what God did in the Old Testament goes a long way in explaining what God is up to even now.

The God of Israel does not change.

If we can see what God is up to in history, we might better understand what he is up to today.

Paul believes that God has kept his promise to Israel and that, in the end “all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:26).

In the passage before us today, Paul takes on a quick journey through three different periods in Israel’s history to show us how the plan and promise of God has been unfolding just as planned.

The story of Israel displays the sovereignty of God in bringing about his promises through his abundant mercy.

As we consider these three periods in Israel’s story, we will see the mercy of God’s choice, the mercy of God’s name, and the mercy of God’s wrath.

The Mercy of God’s Sovereign Choice

Paul begins where we might expect him to begin, with Israel’s patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

In verses 6-13, he demonstrates that Israel’s history, from the very beginning, is a story of the mercy of God in his sovereign choice.

The sorrow that Paul expressed in the first five verses might tempt one to draw the conclusion that God has broken his promise, but Paul is quick here to say that this would the wrong conclusion to make.[1]What he does in verses 6-13 is to argue, not so much that there is still time for God to make it right, but that, in fact, the rejection of Israel’s Messiah by Israel is, paradoxical as it may seem, part of the plan.

Israel’s rejection of her Messiah is to be seen as evidence that God is actually doing what he said he would do.

God’s plan of cosmic salvation is moving forward and is not, in any way, being hindered.

Now, how is this so?

The Seed and the Children

Paul’s shocking claim is this: “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.”

He is saying, “Just because you are an ethnic Jew, this does not automatically make you a member of the “Israel” to whom God had made his great promise.

Of course, this would be offensive to many Jewish ears, but if it’s true, it would mean that those Jews who reject Jesus as Messiah, who are “cut off” from him, are no problem for the validity of God’s promise made to Israel, because they aren’t actually members of Israel in the first place.

You can see that Paul is either going to be seen as a great expositor of Israel’s religion, what it is Israel’s God has been up to all along, or he going to be rejected as a heretic, a Jewish cult leader or something like that.

It becomes clear that if we are going to understand what Paul is saying, we’re going to have to see that he uses the term “Israel” in two different ways.

Here in Romans, the two ways are meant to distinguish ethnic Jews who believe in Jesus as Messiah (the second “Israel” in verse 6) and those who do not (the first “Israel” in verse 6).[2]The second Israel is a subset of the first and the “Israel” to whom the great promise of the Bible was made.

Now, to prove his point, Paul takes us back to the stories of Israel’s patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Just consider, Paul says, that “not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.”

This English translation comes off sounding a bit ridiculous.

How can any of Abraham’s offspring not be rightly called his children?

The Greek of verse 7 literally says, “nor that are seed of Abraham all children.”

The key to understanding what Paul is saying is to notice the theologically significant term seed, translated “offspring” in the ESV.[3]

The “seed of Abraham” is a smaller unit within the larger group of all his biological children.

Recall that in the biblical story, while Abraham had other children, God said that his promise to Abraham would come only through Isaac.

Verse 7 cites Genesis 21:12, “Through Isaac shall your offspring (seed) be named.”

The promise of God would not come to pass through all of Abraham’s children but only through the children of Isaac.

But then we must go further, for the Bible also shows that not all of Isaac’s biological children are considered Abraham’s seed either.

Verse 10 reminds us of the birth of the twin sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob.

And “the promise,” as it is continued on to the next generation, demonstrates an even further limitation, seen in the prophetic words of Genesis 25:23, cited in verse 12 as well as the prophecy of Malachi 1:2-3, cited in verse 13.

The promise would be carried on through the descendants of Jacob and not through the descendants of Esau.

The Purpose of Election

The point that Paul is making is made plain in verse 11.

The promise of God will carry on according to “God’s purpose of election.”

In other words, when we look to see if God has kept or broken his promise, we are looking at the wrong place if we look at unbelievers.

God’s promise simply does not depend upon anyone believing the promise.

The promise depends on God and never on us.

That’s good news!

It is a demonstration of his mercy.

God did not need Abraham to help him out with the promise by fathering Ishmael through Sarah’s maidservant, and God did not have to wait to see if either Esau or Jacob would turn out to be good or bad.

The promise would advance according to God’s purpose, in accordance with what God elects or chooses to do.

And just in case we miss the point, God’s purposeful choice of how his promise will persist in human history does not depend on the “works” of anybody but on “him who calls”—the “call” here reminding us of God “calling” the seed of Abraham through Isaac and not through any other biological children of Abraham.

Now let us take note of this point in verse 11, drawn from Israel’s own story.

God will see to it that his promise of salvation comes to pass.

Nothing will stop his plan because it depends on his own sovereign choice and effectual call not on any human works.

And God’s sovereign choice means we should not be surprised if we see a pruning of sorts taking place, a narrowing down of just who this “true Israel” turns out to be.

When it comes to his great promise, the promise to save the cosmos through Israel, it becomes clear, already in the Old Testament, that identifying the true Israel is not as simple as counting the descendants of Abraham or Isaac, and we should be prepared that the same would apply to the descendants of Jacob, too.

God chooses to narrow down the true Israel—he did this already with the patriarchs, so we should not be surprised if, in the current state of Christianity, he might be doing something similar.

Paul believes God has a very good reason for doing this, which he will come to soon enough, but he has to deal first with another objection that arises from the fact of God’s sovereign choice.

The Mercy of God’s Name

The objection arises, quite naturally even to modern sensibilities, from verse 13.

God’s purpose of election, of choosing some but not all to be the ones who carry the promise of cosmic restoration forward, brings up the charge of “injustice on God’s part” (v.

14).

If indeed God has kept his promise by his sovereign choice, there is still this charge of unrighteousness that comes when we assume it is unfair for God to choose some but not all.

Why me, but not them?

And the answer to this question is found when we see the mercy of God’s name.

Why Jacob and Not Esau?

The shocking words of verse 13 offend many, and they should.

God says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

God’s hatred of Esau is no small thing.

It means that God rejected him and his descendants and left them outside his covenant promise choosing to enact it with the descendants of Jacob instead.[4]

Our sense of justice makes us wonder on what basis God could make this discrimination between the two brothers.

One thing is clear: God’s choice was not on the basis of what Esau and his descendants had done or not done, and neither was it on the basis of what they one day would or would not do.

It is not that God foresaw what would be done by each, that Jacob would be, comparatively at least, better than his brother.

That can’t be it because, had God looked into the future, what would he have seen?

He would have seen Jacob every bit as evil as Esau, maybe even worse.

It was Jacob who took advantage of Esau’s hunger to take away his birthright (Gen 25:29-34).

It was Jacob who, in conspiracy with his mother, deceived his father and cheated Esau a second time and took away his blessing (Gen 27:36).

It was Jacob who out-tricked his father-in-law and siphoned off his wealth (Gen 31:1).

Jacob’s very name indicates who he turned out to be—a deceiver.

Now of course, Esau is not exactly painted in a good light, either.

The point is that God did not choose the better of the two and neither did he chose the worst of the two.

God simply chose one and not the other, not even taking into account the typical ancient near-eastern custom of which was the eldest.

Why then did God choose Jacob and not Esau?

The answer, from our perspective, is completely arbitrary, and that, to our ears, sounds unfair.

Mercy on His Own

But let’s take a step back for just a moment and consider our own sense of justice and fairness and equity.

Isn’t it true that we human beings aren’t unified on how such things should be analyzed?

What seems fair to one is entirely unfair to the other, and deciding what is “just” in a lot of situations gets us right to the heart of so many of our political debates.

We better be careful here before we assume that we can play the judge on the rightness or wrongness of what God chooses to do.

Paul’s answer to the question of whether God’s sovereign choice is an act of injustice is, first of all, to respond in the strongest possible way: “By no means!”

No way!

It simply cannot be.

After all, all injustice is sin, we are told in 1 John 5:17, and we are talking here about God who, by definition, cannot sin.

Since we are dealing here with the creator God, we had best look at the issue a different way.

In verse 15, Paul cites God’s words to Moses in Exodus 33:19.

We are back again in Israel’s story to the time of Israel’s exodus from Egypt.

We are at the moment of the Golden Calf incident where, if we want to talk about fairness and justice, we’re going to have to admit that God’s own people deserve to have the book thrown at them.