Romans 9:6-9 “What About…”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁶But [it is] not being that the Word of God has failed, for not all those out of Israel [are] Israel, ⁷because neither are the seed of Abraham all children, but “your seed will be called in Isaac.” ⁸That is, the children of the flesh, those [are] not children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned into seed, ⁹for this [is] the word of promise, “I will come according to the set time, and a son will be [born] to Sarah.”

These verses have always perplexed me a bit, but I feel like now, having studied them a while, the knot unraveled a bit, so I want to try to record what I think I’m seeing. First of all, it does make sense that Paul has to address this question, “Has the Word of God failed?” Of course, the question itself is totally ludicrous, as, once again, we’re dealing with God here. He is infinitely perfect. It is a logical impossibility that ever in any way He could “fail.” However, the crescendo of Romans 8 (“Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”) was so loud and triumphant, it does beg the question, “What about Israel?” 

At the time Paul is writing, the appearance would have been that the Church was exploding in growth but that, apparently, the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, and all that was associated with them had been set aside. Back to vv. 4,5, they had been chosen by God and given “great and precious” promises, however, now they are set aside. Especially with their crucifixion of the Messiah, the Lord has apparently rejected them and turned to the Gentiles. Jesus Himself had even said to them, “Look, your house is left to you desolate!” (Matt. 23:38).

That all would make perfect sense to us, but, if we were really thinking, we’d go back to Romans 8, see that too was for us “very great and precious” promises, and then ask the question, “If Israel’s sins could cause the Lord to set aside those promises, what about us?”

I want to inject here, this question, in and of itself, is to this very day alive and well. “What about my sins?” People wonder, “It is great that Jesus died for me and promises me salvation, but what about my sins?” They can read Romans 8 with its glorious promises, then say, “But what about my sins? Surely I can mess up so badly the Lord will simply give up on me?” I would add that it feels like that should be true pretty much all day every day. In other words, it is hard to believe He isn’t fed up with me. After some forty years of knowing Him, I’m still keenly aware how much I do not deserve His love. If anything, that feeling only gets worse as the years go by (and I only add to my failures). In fact, there is a huge fraction of professing Christians today who’ve actually enshrined the idea that you can lose your salvation. They follow all this exact same line of thinking, then conclude that somehow, in some way, salvation has to be conditional.

I could quote very clear Scriptures to refute that idea (including Romans 8!), but my lay answer to all of that is this: If Jesus didn’t save me from me, then He didn’t save me at all. This whole discussion highlights exactly why salvation must be eternal. It has to be secure in Jesus or, I’m sorry, but it would be worthless. If there is any way I could mess it up and get God to give up on me, then there is no hope. My sins – that is exactly the problem! That is precisely why I needed Jesus to start with. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.”

Again, if Jesus didn’t save me from me, then I’m doomed. I am my own worst enemy. As the song says, “All my hope is in Jesus.” Just like the Jews, people want to somehow “establish their own righteousness” (10:3). The book of Romans has already long since established the absolute absurdity of such a proposition. It is Christ’s righteousness we need. The Jews thought they could do it (“All that the Lord commands us, we will do!”), but they, just like us, failed miserably. What they needed to realize, just like us, was that they cannot. They needed a Savior and they needed a Savior who is bigger than their sins.

So, what about Israel? For Paul, this is no small issue. He’s about to devote three chapters of the book of Romans to answering that very question. To understand the Lord’s relationship with Israel will mean for you and me to better understand our own salvation, although I would caution again we need to remember we’re dealing with God.

What does Paul establish here? “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel…in other words, it is not the natural children…but it is the children of promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.” In our world, we would quickly observe, not everyone who says they’re a Christian is a Christian. Not every person in our church is really born again. That, I would suggest is obvious to us all. We just need to realize it applies to the Jewish people as well. As discussed earlier, they were adopted by God as a people group, as a nation, to be His chosen, specially favored people. Yet, individually speaking, each one of them may or may not have had a personal relationship with God. The ones who really truly are, in God’s eyes, considered to be the offspring of Abraham are the children “of promise.”

That is where you and I sneak in, because we too can enter into this world of God’s promises. Back to chapter 4, that was Paul’s entire point. Faith is the key. Believing God’s promises is the key that opens the door to a real relationship with Him – and that relationship is entirely personal for every single individual. Specifically to a Jewish audience, Jesus said, “…Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:14).

No, God has not failed. His promise stands to them and to us, “Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” but that promise is only good for those who, by faith, have accepted God’s promise of salvation in Christ, who have entered into that personal relationship with Him. Israel’s example ought to first of all move us Gentiles to each ask ourselves whether we have in fact entered into that relationship of Promise. It wasn’t enough to be born a Jew, but neither is it enough for us to be born into Christian families or be members of Christian churches. I may in fact be a part of the “right” group, but that only makes me more accountable to answer the question, “What about me?”

What about me? For myself, even the answer to that question is still Jesus. “What about me?” Yes, what about me? As the old song said, “All that I want, all  that I need, yea all that I plead is Jesus.”  

Romans 9:6-9 “Here We Go…”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁶But [it is] not being that the Word of God has failed, for not all those out of Israel [are] Israel, ⁷because neither are the seed of Abraham all children, but “your seed will be called in Isaac.” ⁸That is, the children of the flesh, those [are] not children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned into seed, ⁹for this [is] the word of promise, “I will come according to the set time, and a son will be [born] to Sarah.”

In verses 1-5, Paul has clearly presented his admiration for the Jewish people and the advantages they enjoy as God’s chosen people. However, that in itself begs the question of why so many of them do not have faith or actually outright reject Jesus and the Gospel.

I’m going to do something dangerous here. I’m going to make some statements and assertions before even wading into the complexities of the chapter before us. Theologically speaking, this entire chapter is a battleground as it goes on to present what we call the doctrine of Election. Just reading a few commentaries I see everyone forming their battlelines and ready to shout down their causes.

I will go on and study the chapter. I will sincerely try to exegete the verses, to let them say what they say, and only then to draw my conclusions what I think it all means. That is why it is dangerous to say anything up front. I do not want to ever approach the Word of God with “my mind made up.” That said, after I study, I may have to come back and correct what I say here.

However, as I read, it seems to me there is one important point everyone is missing and that is what I want to address. What everyone (in my mind) is missing is that we are talking about God. Paul himself frames it that way. He addresses the question, “Has the Word of God failed?” (v.6). He later asks the question, “Is God unjust?” (v.14) and in v.20 asks, “who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?”

What everyone is missing is that we are talking about God.

We’re talking about the One who inhabits eternity, who is the Creator, who lives completely above time and space. He created time and space for us to live in. It may absolutely confine us but has absolutely no bearing on Him. He dwells in what to us is His completely unimaginable timeless, spaceless eternity. He is not us. He is not a man. He is God. As God He is absolutely infinite, which means He is infinite in all of His being. He is infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, infinitely just, infinitely loving, and simply infinite in His absolute perfection.

It is good and right for us to study His Word, to seek to understand Him, to learn (as much as we can) who He is, but it is the utter heights of logical folly for us to challenge Him. It is folly to even ask questions like, “Is God unjust?” or, for that matter, simply to take the posture that we can decide whether or not we like what this chapter teaches about this subject of Election. Paul shouldn’t even have to ask the question, “Who are you to talk back to God?”

Job got into that mindset and God asked, “Who is this that darkens counsel without knowledge?” Job understood exactly what He was saying and replied, “I clap my hand over my mouth and repent in dust and ashes!” Yes, “Who is this that darkens counsel without knowledge?” Would any of us blades of grass actually presume to challenge what God does?

I have been thinking a lot about this very subject lately and realizing that, even for me to be “displeased” with whatever God has allowed in my life is actually nothing less than arrogance. He says, “All things work together for good,” then in my heart I’m saying (whether I would put this in words or not), “See here now, I don’t agree with this!” Squeak, squeak, squeak! The plain fact is that I am clueless. I have no idea what the Lord is up to. I have no idea what great eternal plans He is working out. I can barely make it through a day, much less run a universe! The fact is, all day every day, what I’m dealing with is God.

As I wade into this chapter, God help me to just let Him say what He says, to let Him teach me how to see the world through His great, eternal eyes, and then, one way or another be better fitted to live the life He has given me in this world.

Lord, help me remember, as I study, as I read, as I think about it all, to never forget I’m dealing with You.

Romans 9:4-5 “Accountable”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴ones who are Israelites, of whom [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the [temple] service and the promises. Of whom [are] the fathers, and out of whom [is] the Christ (that [is], according to the flesh), the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.

One last observation I’d like to record from this passage: Jesus Himself said, “To whom much is given, much will also be required” (Luke 12:48). As we have been studying, the Jewish people are an almost unbelievably blessed people. If I read again Paul’s list here in this passage which I’ve tried to literally translate above, it is astounding to think that one people could have been so blessed in this fallen, sin-cursed world. None of us deserves anything yet these people were allowed to actually hear the voice of God and see the Shekinah glory. Out of all the families on earth, theirs was chosen to be the Lord’s special people. What more can we do than to just stand back in awe of so much blessing?

However, back to Jesus’ words, what does all this blessing mean for them? Of course it offers to them all the love and joy and peace that our good God would pour out into their lives. He Himself called to them and said, “Open wide your mouth and I will fill it,” however, as He went on to say, “But you would not” (Ps. 81:10,11). And therein lies the problem. As Jesus said, “To whom much is given, much will also be required.” I have observed before, basically the OT is, in many ways, a sad account of the Jewish people’s nearly complete failure to embrace God’s blessings. It is certainly a glaring testimony to the utter failure of legalism. However, beyond that, it would warn us all what a mess we can make of our world when we take for granted the wonderful blessings that are ours from the very hand of God.

It makes me very sad to think how badly this world has treated the Jewish people. I, for one, cannot watch movies and documentaries regarding the Holocaust. When I do, I find myself still depressed three days later. I just can’t bear to see such cruelty against what I perceive to be innocent people. Yet I step back with this passage before me and Jesus’ words ringing in my ears, and I regretfully have to acknowledge there is justice in it all. To be so blessed is to be very accountable. “To whom much is given, much will also be required.” Looking again at Deut. 28 and realizing the enormous blessings they were offered in the first part of the chapter, it only makes sense that the horrible cursings in the last part are a just punishment for those who spurned those blessings.

Again, it honestly causes some kind of really deep hurt in my heart to even acknowledge these things. Jewish people have been and are such a blessing to the rest of us. It makes me want to only wish them good and it hurts to think how much they’ve been mistreated. No wonder Paul has “such great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart! At some point, I have to rise up out of all that heartache for them and ask, what would the Lord want us to learn from it all?

As I ponder on it, I seem to hear Nathan’s words ring down through the centuries, saying to me, “You’re the man.” Yes. I am the man. Am I blessed? Gracious, if I think about it, I (we) actually enjoy blessings of which even Daniel himself could have only dreamed. Daniel had a good part of the Old Testament to study, but that was it. I have a completed Bible! I have all of the books of the Old Testament and then the New to boot! Daniel could only look ahead and believe the promise of a coming Messiah. I get to read Jesus’ very words! The best Daniel could hope for was that the Holy Spirit would be “upon” him. I get the Holy Spirit dwelling in me!

Really, stop and think about it. As New Testament Christians this side of the Cross, are you and I more or less accountable than the Jewish people? I suppose someone could argue that point, but the bottom line of it all is to realize you and I are enormously accountable. Am I enormously blessed? Then I’m enormously accountable! As I think about it, I realize it’s not just the spiritual blessings we enjoy today. God gave me life itself. He let me be born to two parents who loved me. In this cruel world with so many mean, hurtful, neglectful parents, I personally get to swim in a sea of living where there has honestly never been even one second when I had to wonder if my parents loved me. The longer I live, the more I realize what a blessing that is. I had a wonderful childhood with seriously “more fun than a barrel of monkeys!” Then the Lord gave me a beautiful wife, who gave me three wonderful children, who’ve given me four wonderful grandchildren!

Of course, I could go on and on…and on and on and on, but isn’t that the point? Yes, I am very blessed. Nathan is still staring me in the eyes and saying again, “You’re the man.” Yes, like the Jewish people, I need to seriously realize that makes me very accountable. “To whom much is given, much will also be required.” Peter asked Jesus, “What about him?” (referring to John), and what was Jesus’ answer? “What is that to you? You follow Me!” (Jn. 21:22). “So then, each of us will stand and give an account of himself to God” (Rom. 14:12).

What about me? What about you?

I hope I am not taking the Lord’s blessings for granted. I hope I’m making good on them in every way I can. As I sit here, though, I feel like the question runs so deep, the only thing I can do is to take it to prayer and then leave it there. I know my own heart is “desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.” That passage (Jer. 17:9) then asks, “Who can know it?” and the very next verse answers, “I the Lord search the heart.” Yes. The Lord knows. So I can pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thoughts and cares. See if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” What can we do but run to Heb. 4:16 and hide in His promise, “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need!”

Rather than being critical of the Jewish people, we all need to realize we’re cut from “the same bolt of cloth” and, if not even more accountable, at least as much as them. May we all today live with hearts filled with thankfulness and acknowledgment of so much blessing, then honestly ask the Lord to help us make the best of it all, to love well because He does, to live well because He’s given us so much!

Romans 9:4-5 “Out Of Whom…”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses: 

⁴ones who are Israelites, of whom [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the [temple] service and the promises. Of whom [are] the fathers, and out of whom [is] the Christ (that [is], according to the flesh), the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.

At the end of this list of advantages the Jewish people enjoy, Paul finally comes to what is, in fact, their crowning glory: “out of whom is the Christ (that is, according to the flesh), the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.” The Lord had told Abraham, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen. 12:3), and we have no problem today seeing in that promise none other than Jesus Himself. He is the Blessing! The Father had said to Him, “It is too small a thing for You to be My servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make You a light for the Gentiles, that You may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isa. 49:6).

Us lowly Gentiles can this very morning enjoy the blessings of knowing God, knowing His forgiveness and His love, of being called His children, entirely because of Jesus, and Paul’s words would add one more thought – …and He was a Jew. Jesus was not a 17^th century Englishman! He was a Jew. As you and I would relish the blessings of Jesus’ atonement, let us be reminded He came to us through the Jewish people!  The angel Gabriel was sent to a Jewish girl named Mary to tell her she would be the mother of the Messiah, and though it may be true that “He came unto His own and His own received Him not” (John 1:11), yet, let us be reminded the Jewish people are still “His own.”

It is notable to me that, with all the other blessings Paul has listed here, they were literally “of whom.” When it comes to Jesus, he changes it to “out of whom.” I do not doubt for a minute, that distinction was deliberate. Yes, Jesus came to us through the Jewish people, but He is something more, something special, that needs a place of honor all its own. As we all know, He wasn’t just a man, He was the God-man. He wasn’t just Mary’s son. He was the Son of God, God the Son, born the son of Mary.

That is why Paul takes pains in this passage when telling us Jesus was “out of the Jewish people,” that it was “according to the flesh.” There is simply “more to the story.” It is not enough to say Jesus was a Jew. The fact is He was more than a Jew. Now, it is extremely important to recognize that Jesus was fully a man – a Jewish man, but still a man. Heb. 2:14 tells us, “Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil.” In God’s great order of our universe, He ordained that our Redeemer needed to be a kinsman-Redeemer – one of us, and Jesus was willing to be just that man, to “empty” Himself and “to set aside the free exercise of His divine attributes” entirely for the purpose of saving our fallen, lost souls.

It was important too for Paul to emphasize that Jesus’ Jewish lineage was “according to the flesh,” precisely because he can’t for a second forget this reality – that Jesus is more than a man. Paul says very clearly who He is: “the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.” All down through the centuries, people have tried to explain away this passage, refusing to believe that Jesus was none other than God Himself. Their hermeneutical gymnastics are impressively creative, but totally unconvincing for people who know personally that none other than the God-man could ever wash away our sins.

As we’ve seen before, Paul had asked back in Rom. 3, “What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew?” then answered himself, “Much in every way!” Having taken the time to slow down and actually consider all the advantages he lists here in Romans 9, I am more impressed than ever with what a blessed people are the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish people. I feel like I’ve “known” that for years, but never taken the time to ever really let it all “soak in.” I am very thankful for these two simple verses where the Lord provided for us the information and the opportunity to, in fact, let it “soak in.”

It all makes me want to rush ahead and say with Paul in 11:33, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” I’m only five verses into chapter 9 and he already has me saying that. I’m sure I have no idea what amazing things the Lord has yet to show us as we would work our way slowly all the way through chapters 9 and 10 and 11, until we finally come to that praise!

 

Romans 9:4-5 “Of Whom…3”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁴ones who are Israelites, of whom [is] the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the [temple] service and the promises. Of whom [are] the fathers, and out of whom [is] the Christ (that [is], according to the flesh), the One being God upon all, blessed into the ages. Amen.

Continuing to consider the privileges enjoyed by the Jewish people, Paul notes, “of whom are the fathers.” Once again the “scholars” debate endlessly exactly to whom Paul was referring, and I, of course, would maintain that no ancient person would have cared. The point is that the Jewish people had a heritage. They meticulously kept their genealogies, so that they could trace their ancestry literally all the way back to Adam, then including his son Seth, and men like Enoch and Methuselah and Noah, all the way to, of course, Abraham, then Isaac and Jacob, then including godly kings like David and Hezekiah and Josiah, and who knows? Maybe even including the prophets like Elijah and Isaiah and Daniel? You see the point – the Jews knew exactly where they came from and they had every reason to be proud of that heritage of great men with great faith.

In my life I have known a number of people who had been adopted as infants, or for some other reason had no idea “where they came from.” I’ve sadly had to watch those people at times struggle with no sense of “belonging.” “Who am I?” “Where did I come from?” “Why do I look the way I do?” “Who do I look like?” I’ve also seen the exuberant joy it brings one of those people when they finally do discover something of their heritage, when they actually find a photo of their father and learn the names of their grandparents and great grandparents and where they were from. The rest of us take for granted what a blessing it is to know exactly where we came from – to know I look like my grandfather, or, like Harry Potter, to hear people say, “You have your mother’s eyes.” It has even been a jewel for me most of my life to know my great-grandmother Hattie’s favorite hymn was “Haven of Rest.” That adds a special delight to the rare opportunities when I get to sing or play it!

Us Bixbys have the rare privilege that we can trace our ancestry all the way back to Joseph Bixby, who immigrated to America in about 1638 from the area of Suffolk, England. We even know of a man who lived as early as the 1400’s who is believed to be an early Bixby. Beyond that, it is thought that Bixby is actually a name of Danish origin, which implies that our ancestors were Vikings, That of course explains our hot tempers! All my life I have considered that quite a treasure (the ancestry, not the temper!), knowing very well that few families have such knowledge, but mine is literally nothing compared to what the Jewish people possess – all the way back to Adam!

Just my opinion, but my observation would be that our “heritage” actually imparts a significant impulse to our character. In other words, to know my grandfather was a very hard worker stirs something in my soul to say, “I should be like him.” I would suggest we do not attribute nearly enough value to the impact that grandparents have on grandchildren. We think of child-rearing as the responsibility of their parents, a very direct and deliberate undertaking. However, the influence of grandparents, I believe, is a quiet, nearly unnoticed impact in those children’s hearts. Somewhere in the ages of about 18 to 25 years old, young people decide in their own hearts who they are and what will be important to them, who they will be as people, and I suspect it is particularly during that time that the grandparents’ influence truly bears most significantly on their young minds.

Us grandparents (and great-grandparents) may not see all of the character or faith we would like to see in our young grandchildren, but I think we actually can have great hope that, when that time comes in their lives, when they are truly deciding who they are, if we have sincerely tried to be godly people, to love them, to pray for them, and just to leave them an example of character, there is a very strong tendency in them to follow our example. What is also wonderful is that we don’t even have to live to see it – and we may not, but then that doesn’t really matter to us, does it? Just so they are blessed!

Again, it’s sad for people who have no heritage at all, to live with no idea of where they come from. I’m thankful I know considerably more about my ancestry than probably most people. However, what can compare with the Jewish people and their heritage stretching clear back to Adam and including so many of the very best people this world has ever known! Theirs certainly are “the fathers!”