Slides: God’s Chosen People

God’s Chosen People
Romans 9

Anguish over Israel

¹ I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— ² 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 sake of my brothers, those of my own race, ⁴ the people of Israel.

Missionary burden

• Knows people without Jesus are lost
• Feels anguish and eagerness to do anything that would help them
• Especially troubled over Israelites
• My people: kinship and patriotism
• God’s people: special privileges

Blessed heritage

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.

Four tough questions

Has God’s promise failed? (9:6-13)
No, the promise was for the chosen.

Is God unfair? (9:14-18)
No, he is free to show mercy or judge.

Can God blame the faithless? (9:19-29)
Yes, and his purposes will prevail.

What is the main issue? (9:30-33)
Right with God by trusting, not trying.

Has God’s word failed?

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷ Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham's children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”

Children of promise

⁸ In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. ⁹ For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

Children of promise
Not every member of the chosen people is a chosen person.

Not natural children, but children of promise, are God’s children and Abraham’s spiritual children.

Abraham’s children?

If you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example… Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.” (John 8:39, 56 NLT)

“…those who are of the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews though they are not, but are liars.. (Rev 3:9)

 
Unconditional election

¹⁰ Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac.

¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—In order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” ¹³ Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Four tough questions

Has God’s promise failed? (9:6-13)
No, the promise was for the chosen.

Is God unfair? (9:14-18)
No, he is free to show mercy or judge.

Can God blame the faithless? (9:19-29)
Yes, and his purposes will prevail.

What is the main issue? (9:30-33)
Right with God by trusting, not trying.

Is God unfair?

¹⁴ What then shall we say? Is God unjust?  Not at all! 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 It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

Hardening

¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I 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.” ¹⁸ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

Hardening or mercy

• Pharaoh wanted to be Pharaoh-ish, and God gave him over to himself.
• “Pharaoh hardened his heart.”
• “YHWH hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”
• Many Egyptians were softened.
• Some of Pharaoh’s officials feared and heeded God’s word. (Exodus 9:20-21)
• Many left Egypt with Israel. (Ex 12:38)

Don’t be a hater

You shall not abhor an Edomite (Esau’s offspring), for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were a sojourner in his land. (Deut 23:7)

• Focus on any positive ties and past benefits, not on opposition.
• Christians today owe others—especially Jews and formerly Christian nations.

Four tough questions

Has God’s promise failed? (9:6-13)
No, the promise was for the chosen.

Is God unfair? (9:14-18)
No, he is free to show mercy or judge.

Can God blame the faithless? (9:19-29)
Yes, and his purposes will prevail.

What is the main issue? (9:30-33)
Right with God by trusting, not trying. 

Can God blame us?

¹⁹ One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” ²⁰ But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”

Potter and clay

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? 

God’s wrath

²² What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

God’s mercy

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— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

Chosen and called

• Outsiders in: God chose many from nations not formerly chosen.
• Insiders out: God bypassed many from the chosen nation. These are at fault for remaining themselves.
• Chosen remnant: God still chooses and saves some Israelites.

Many outsiders are in

²⁵ As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” ²⁶ and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

Many insiders are out

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. ²⁸ For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” ²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”

Four tough questions

Has God’s promise failed? (9:6-13)
No, the promise was for the chosen.

Is God unfair? (9:14-18)
No, he is free to show mercy or judge.

Can God blame the faithless? (9:19-29)
Yes, and his purposes will prevail.

What is the main issue? (9:30-33)
Right with God by trusting, not trying.

Righteousness by faith

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.

God’s chosen stone

They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” ³³ As it is written: “See, 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.”

God chose to save by grace in Jesus. God’s choice is either your cornerstone or your stumbling stone.

The main issue

It is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise… In order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls… It does not depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy… the Gentile obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith… Israel pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. 

Straight Answersw

Has God’s promise failed? (9:6-13)
No, the promise was for the chosen.

Is God unfair? (9:14-18)
No, he is free to show mercy or judge.

Can God blame the faithless? (9:19-29)
Yes, and his purposes will prevail.

What is the main issue? (9:30-33)
Right with God by trusting, not trying.

Credit and blame

• If you are saved, God deserves all credit.
• If you are lost, you deserve all blame.

Fuller picture (ch. 10-11)

• Responsible to accept the gospel
• Responsible to spread the gospel
• Israel is not totally rejected
• A Jewish remnant chosen by grace
• An era of Gentile conversion
• A vast future conversion of Jews
• No group can claim superiority: only through humble faith are we saved
• Adore God’s mystery and majesty

Mystery and majesty

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)