Romans 9
9
1 I am speaking the truth in Christ; I am not lying. My conscience offers testimony to me in the Holy Spirit,
2 because the sadness within me is great, and there is a continuous sorrow in my heart.
3 For I was desiring that I myself might be anathemized from Christ, for the sake of my brothers, who are my kinsmen according to the flesh.
4 These are the Israelites, to whom belongs adoption as sons, and the glory and the testament, and the giving and following of the law, and the promises.
5 Theirs are the fathers, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is over all things, blessed God, for all eternity. Amen.
6 But it is not that the Word of God has perished. For not all those who are Israelites are of Israel.
7 And not all sons are the offspring of Abraham: "For your offspring will be invoked in Isaac."
8 In other words, those who are the sons of God are not those who are sons of the flesh, but those who are sons of the Promise; these are considered to be the offspring.
9 For the word of promise is this: "I will return at the proper time. And there shall be a son for Sarah."
10 And she was not alone. For Rebecca also, having conceived by Isaac our father, from one act,
11 when the children had not yet been born, and had not yet done anything good or bad (such that the purpose of God might be based on their choice),
12 and not because of deeds, but because of a calling, it was said to her: "The elder shall serve the younger."
13 So also it was written: "I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau."
14 What should we say next? Is there unfairness with God? Let it not be so!
15 For to Moses he says: "I will pity whomever I pity. And I will offer mercy to whomever I will pity."
16 Therefore, it is not based on those who choose, nor on those who excel, but on God who takes pity.
17 For Scripture says to the Pharaoh: "I have raised you up for this purpose, so that I may reveal my power by you, and so that my name may be announced to all the earth."
18 Therefore, he takes pity on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
19 And so, you would say to me: "Then why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?"
20 O man, who are you to question God? How can the thing that has been formed say to the One who formed him: "Why have you made me this way?"
21 And does not the potter have the authority over the clay to make, from the same material, indeed, one vessel unto honor, yet truly another unto disgrace?
22 What if God, wanting to reveal his wrath and to make his power known, endured, with much patience, vessels deserving wrath, fit to be destroyed,
23 so that he might reveal the wealth of his glory, within these vessels of mercy, which he has prepared unto glory?
24 And so it is with those of us whom he has also called, not only from among the Jews, but even from among the Gentiles,
25 just as he says in Hosea: "I will call those who were not my people, 'my people,' and she who was not beloved, 'beloved,' and she who had not obtained mercy, 'one who has obtained mercy.'
26 And this shall be: in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they shall be called the sons of the living God."
27 And Isaiah cried out on behalf of Israel: "When the number of the sons of Israel is like the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved.
28 For he shall complete his word, while abbreviating it out of equity. For the Lord shall accomplish a brief word upon the earth."
29 And it is just as Isaiah predicted: "Unless the Lord of hosts had bequeathed offspring, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have been made similar to Gomorrah."
30 What should we say next? That the Gentiles who did not follow justice have attained justice, even the justice that is of faith.
31 Yet truly, Israel, though following the law of justice, has not arrived at the law of justice.
32 Why is this? Because they did not seek it from faith, but as if it were from works. For they stumbled over a stumbling block,
33 just as it was written: "Behold, I am placing a stumbling block in Zion, and a rock of scandal. But whoever believes in him shall not be confounded."
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Romans 9
9
God Is Calling His People
1-5At the same time, you need to know that I carry with me at all times a huge sorrow. It’s an enormous pain deep within me, and I’m never free of it. I’m not exaggerating—Christ and the Holy Spirit are my witnesses. It’s the Israelites . . . If there were any way I could be cursed by the Messiah so they could be blessed by him, I’d do it in a minute. They’re my family. I grew up with them. They had everything going for them—family, glory, covenants, revelation, worship, promises, to say nothing of being the race that produced the Messiah, the Christ, who is God over everything, always. Oh, yes!
6-9Don’t suppose for a moment, though, that God’s Word has malfunctioned in some way or other. The problem goes back a long way. From the outset, not all Israelites of the flesh were Israelites of the spirit. It wasn’t Abraham’s sperm that gave identity here, but God’s promise. Remember how it was put: “Your family will be defined by Isaac”? That means that Israelite identity was never racially determined by sexual transmission, but it was God-determined by promise. Remember that promise, “When I come back next year at this time, Sarah will have a son”?
10-13And that’s not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb—incapable of good or bad—she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, “The firstborn of your twins will take second place.” Later that was turned into a stark epigram: “I loved Jacob; I hated Esau.”
14-18Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, “I’m in charge of mercy. I’m in charge of compassion.” Compassion doesn’t originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God’s mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, “I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power.” All we’re saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for better or worse.
19Are you going to object, “So how can God blame us for anything since he’s in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?”
20-33Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people. Hosea put it well:
I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies;
I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.
In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!”
they’re calling you “God’s living children.”
Isaiah maintained this same emphasis:
If each grain of sand on the seashore were numbered
and the sum labeled “chosen of God,”
They’d be numbers still, not names;
salvation comes by personal selection.
God doesn’t count us; he calls us by name.
Arithmetic is not his focus.
Isaiah had looked ahead and spoken the truth:
If our powerful God
had not provided us a legacy of living children,
We would have ended up like ghost towns,
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
How can we sum this up? All those people who didn’t seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:
Careful! I’ve put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can’t get around.
But the stone is me! If you’re looking for me,
you’ll find me on the way, not in the way.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.