Romans 9:1-13 - Free Bible Commentary ‹ Taylorsville Road church of Christ

Free Bible Commentary

“Romans 9:1-13”

Thursday, March 01, 2018

Categories: Romans

“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

“But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: ‘THROUGH ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS WILL BE NAMED.’ That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: ‘AT THIS TIME I WILL COME, AND SARAH SHALL HAVE A SON.’ And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER.’ Just as it is written, ‘JACOB I LOVED, BUT ESAU I HATED.’”

---End of Scripture verses---

Chapter 9 starts a new section in the Paul’s letter to the Romans. He had written extensively in the first 8 chapters about the non-partiality of God (Romans 2:11); that all have sinned and fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:26); and that Jews were in the exact same boat is the Gentiles, spiritually speaking (Romans 3:22, 29); that all are saved by faith not works of the Law (Romans 3:28).

A question about God’s faithfulness might arise from this kind of argumentation, so Paul wrote this chapter to address that issue. Has God rejected His own chosen people? And if God specifically chose Israel, and now says that they are no different than Gentiles, has He gone back on His promise? And if He has, can He be trusted to be faithful to the magnificent promises that were just declared in chapter 8?

Paul had just enthusiastically declared God’s faithful people to be overwhelming conquerors in Christ, and that no outside force could possibly come between them and the love of their Creator (Romans 8:37-39). And yet in the very next sentence he declares his “great sorrow and unceasing grief” (verse 2) for his “kinsmen according to the flesh” (verse 3), because they were “accursed” (verse 3) by God.

Israel was immeasurably blessed by God. The Lord had personally adopted them has His children, had shown them His personal “Shekinah” glory (Exodus 13:21-22; 40:36-38), established a unique covenant and Law with them, and most importantly, had brought the Messiah promised to the Patriarchs into the world, through them (verses 4-5).

So, does the fact that such a privileged people, hand-selected by God to give us the Christ, have now been rejected and “accursed” by God mean that God’s promises have somehow failed (verse 6)? The answer is, “Of course not!” The simple truth is that God chose Israel to fulfill His purposes but He did not promise eternal salvation to each Jew unconditionally individually.

We will see the logic of this argumentation fleshed out in tomorrow’s reading, but in today’s verses Paul shows us that not everyone who is a descendant from physical Israel can rightly claim to be a part of spiritual Israel (verse 6). There has always been a “faithful remnant” of God people, even when the majority had disobediently rebelled against Him (consider 1 Kings 19:18).

Neither are all people called the children of Abraham just because they are physical descendants of Abraham (Matthew 3:9), or even of Isaac (verses 7-12). The point is that God chooses people in exactly the WAY that He does, and for the REASONS that He does, in order to serve His good purposes. And when all is said and done, only those who exhibit the righteous faith of Abraham will be saved by God’s grace and be considered his spiritual descendants (Romans 4:13-16).