Romans 9

CHAPTER 9

Paul’s Sorrow Over Israel’s Unbelief (9:1-5)

1-3 Why did Paul have such great sorrow and unceasing anguish? Because most of the Jews, the people of his own race, had not believed in Jesus Christ. Even though the Jews were God’s specially chosen people, they had lost the opportunity for salvation because of their unbelief. Christ had come first of all to be the Savior of the Jews (Matthew 15:24; Romans 1:16), but most of them had not accepted Him. Therefore, the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles. Paul himselfwas specially appointed to be an apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15; Galatians 2:8). Thus the Gentiles began believing in Christ, and within a few years there were many more Gentile Christians than there were Jewish Christians.

Paul’s sorrow was so great that he was himself willing to be cursed—if by that means his Jewish brothers might be saved. Paul’s love and concern for others was so great that he was willing to give up his own eternal salvation for their sake! In the Old Testament, the great Jewish leader Moses offered to do the same thing in order to save the Jews from God’s wrath (Exodus 32:30-32).

4 Paul here calls the Jews the people of ISRAEL. Israel was the original name of the Jewish nation. The Jews were also called Israelites (Romans 10:1). God had chosen Israel to be His own special people; He had “adopted” them. He had given them the privilege of adoption as sons. The divine glory—that is, God’s presence—was with them. God had established His COVENANTS with the Jews; in particular, He had made a covenant with Abraham, the first Jew (Genesis 17:3-8). God had given the Jews His law, in which His righteous will for them was clearly revealed. And He had given them promises that He would send them a Savior, Christ. Just as Abraham had been declared righteous because of his faith (Genesis 15:6), so the Jews also would be declared righteous and find salvation if they placed their faith in Christ.

5 Christ Himself was a Jew, descended from the Jewish patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah (Matthew 1:1-2). Surely Israel was a nation blessed by God!

Here Paul can’t help adding a word about Christ: namely, that Christ is God over all. Let us always remember that Christ is not only a great man, a great leader, prophet, and teacher; He is also God Himself, God over all.

God’s Promises Do Not Fail (9:6-13)

6 If Israel was such a blessed nation to begin with, what then happened to it? Why had the Jews lost their chance to find salvation? Had God’s promises—God’s word—to them failed, or been broken?

Not at all! God had not broken His promises to Israel. But those promises—the promises of a Savior and of salvation—had been given only to true Jews. And Paul says that not all who call themselves Jews are true Jews (see Romans 2:28-29). For not all who are descended from Israel (that is, Jews by birth) are Israel (that is, true Jews).

Therefore, the promises that God gave to the Jews had not been broken or canceled, because most of the Jews were not, in fact, “true Jews.” True Jews are only those Jews who believe in Jesus. In verse 8, Paul distinguishes between those Jews who are natural children (descendants of Abraham by birth) and those Jews who are children of the promise (those who have believed in the promise—in Jesus). Only for the “children of the promise”—that is, true Jews, believing Jews—are the promises of God fulfilled (see Romans 4:11-17 and comment).

The “children of the promise” are those who seek to become righteous through faith. The “natural children” are those who seek to become righteous by their own efforts, by good works (see Romans 9:32; Galatians 3:6-9 and comments).

7-9 To show that not all natural children (descendants by birth) receive an inheritance (the promise), Paul gives the example of Abraham. Abraham had two “natural children,” Isaac and Ishmael. But only one of them, Isaac, was Abraham’s “true son”; only Isaac received an inheritance. Abraham first had Ishmael by his wife’s maid (Genesis 16:1-4,15-16). The descendants of Ishmael were not Jews.⁵⁵ The Jews were descended from Abraham’s second son, Isaac, whom Abraham had by his wife Sarah. This was the son that God had promised to give Abraham (Genesis 18:14; 21:1-13; Galatians 4:22-23). God does not count true descendants only according to birth. In God’s sight, true descendants are those who have come according to God’s promise—that is, according to faith. Because it was on account of Abraham’s faith in God’s promise that God blessed Abraham and Sarah with a son.

Paul’s main point here is that the Jews cannot claim to be God’s children just because they are Abraham’s natural children by birth. God’s true children are the children of the promise. It is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. Or, to put it another way, it is the children of faith, not of flesh, who are the true Jews. The true offspring of Abraham, then, are those who have faith in Christ. When the Jews (by birth) rejected Christ, they rejected themselves, and lost their inheritance and their place in God’s family.

10-12 In these verses, Paul gives a second illustration of how God does not choose His true heirs according to natural birth. Isaac’s wife Rebecca gave birth to twins. According to Jewish custom, the firstborn twin, Esau, was supposed to receive the family inheritance. But God, according to His own purpose, caused the inheritance to be given to the secondborn twin, Jacob (Genesis 25:20-26; 27:1-35).

Here again we see that God does not give men an inheritance according to their birth, but rather according to His own will, so that His purpose in election might stand (verse 11). Even before he was born, God “elected” or chose Jacob to be the heir. Jacob had no chance to do any good works to prove he was worthy; he hadn’t even been born yet! God’s election is not based on works, but on His own sovereign will. God does not choose us because of our worth; He chooses us because of His grace.

13 In this way, God loved (chose) Jacob and his descendants, and hated (rejected) Esau and his descendants (Malachi 1:2-3). Jacob and Esau were both sons of Isaac, but only Jacob obtained the inheritance, and only from Jacob did the true Jews, the true Israel, descend.

Therefore, in this section Paul’s main teaching is this: God did not choose those Jews to be His children who were Jews only by birth and who sought to be righteous by their own works. Instead, He chose those who, having heard His call, put their faith in His Son Jesus.

God Is Not Unjust (9:14-18)

14-16 Some people might think that God is unjust. They might ask: “Why did God love Jacob and hate Esau? Wasn’t that unjust?” But we must not think such thoughts of God.

In verse 15, Paul quotes the words spoken by God to Moses in Exodus 33:19. God chooses men, calls men, and blesses men according to His own mercy, and not according to man’s desire or effort (verse 16).

In these verses, Paul teaches that God’s mercy is never unjust. Since every man and woman has disobeyed God in some way, no one is worthy to receive salvation. But God, by His mercy and grace, gave His own Son Jesus for our salvation. Except for God’s mercy and grace, no one would ever be able to obtain salvation.

No man can receive God’s grace and mercy by his own desire or effort (verse 16). True, God did say: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). True, we must look toward God with an open and humble heart. But even this we cannot do on our own without first receiving the promptings of God’s grace (see John 1:12-13; 6:44). From beginning to end, our salvation is the work of God’s grace.

17-18 Who was Pharaoh? In Moses’ time, the rulers of WGYPT were called Pharaohs. The Pharaoh Paul refers to in these verses was Rameses II, a cruel and wicked ruler who persecuted the Jews living in Egypt at that time. God sent Moses to deliver the Jews from the hands of this wicked Pharaoh. To bring fear into the heart of this Pharaoh, God performed great signs and wonders through Moses, which are described in Exodus Chapters 7-12.

In verse 17, Paul quotes the words God spoke to Pharaoh (Exodus 9:16). God had raised up this evil ruler and hardened his heart so that God’s power might be displayed and His name proclaimed. If Pharaoh’s heart had not been hardened—if, for example, Pharaoh had repented—God would not have had the chance to demonstrate His power on that occasion. From this we can see that God shows mercy to some people, but the hearts of others He hardens so that they will not obtain mercy.

After reading this we are tempted to think that God really is unjust—that He was unjust to Pharaoh. God never gave Pharaoh a chance! He never showed Pharaoh a bit of kindness! But we must remember that no man is deserving of God’s kindness; no man is deserving of God’s mercy. No man can say to God: “I deserve a chance!” The reason is that we have all sinned against God repeatedly (see Romans 3:10-12). The only thing man deserves from God is punishment. God hardens men because of their sin. When God hardens a man, He is demonstrating His justice—not injustice.

Therefore, God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because of Pharaoh’s wickedness. God was totally just in hardening Pharaoh’s heart.⁵⁶ Pharaoh deserved God’s punishment.

Mercy, on the other hand, is not something anyone “deserves”; otherwise, it wouldn’t be mercy. Mercy, by its very nature, is undeserved. It is given only to the undeserving. No one can complain about not receiving mercy, since no one deserves it! God is under no obligation to show mercy to anyone. But if God decides to show some people mercy, what is wrong with that? Is He unjust to do so? By no means.

So we see that God gives justice (punishment) to all. But to some, according to His eternal purpose, He shows mercy. And since the coming of Christ into the world, God has shown mercy to all those who believe in Him. God has not withdrawn the just punishment we deserve; instead, He has given it to Christ in our place. Thus we see together both the justice and the mercy of God.

Those who receive salvation have God alone to thank, because their salvation has come entirely as a result of His mercy and grace. But those who receive eternal punishment have only themselves to thank, because through their sin they have fully earned their punishment.

God Is Sovereign (9:19-29)

19-21 Just as a lump of clay has no right to complain against the potter, so we likewise have no right to complain against God for making us the way we are. We are not to blame God for our sin.

In Jeremiah 18:1-12, the prophet Jeremiah compares the nations of the earth to clay in the potter’s hands. Through Jeremiah, God said that if any nation He planned to raise up did evil, He would change His mind and punish it instead. Likewise, if any nation He planned to destroy repented, He would forgive that nation and raise it up. Just as God deals with nations, so also does He deal with individuals.

22 What are the objects of his (God’s) wrath that Paul mentions in this verse? They are disobedient men like Pharaoh, or like those who refuse to believe in Christ; they are deserving of God’s wrath. God bore with great patience these disobedient men—these “objects of wrath”—so that they might have a chance to repent. But in the end He will show His wrath to all who do not repent. Such men are indeed prepared for destruction.

Here also some difficult questions arise: Who made these “objects of wrath” which were prepared for destruction, and when were they made? What was the clay like, from which these objects were originally made? Was the clay somehow bad, and that was the reason God made it into an “object of wrath”? Or did God simply set that clay aside in the beginning to be made into objects “prepared for destruction”? What was the basis for God’s decision? Was it the quality of the clay? Or was it simply God’s sovereign will? (see verses 17-18 and comment).

Again, Christians have two main thoughts on this subject. Many Christians think that God, from the very beginning, chose some men (clay) for destruction and other men for salvation. According to this first view, the responsibility for man’s fate lies entirely with God.

But other Christians have a different thought. These Christians believe that God first made all men for salvation. But some men opposed God’s grace and sinned against Him. As a result of their own opposition and sin, these men turned themselves into “objects of wrath.” God bore with great patience their sin and disobedience. God waited patiently so that they might have a chance to repent. Even now, God continues waiting patiently for men to repent. There is still the chance for these disobedient men—these objects of his wrath—to repent and be made into objects of his mercy (verse 23). Thus, according to this second view, men themselves, not God, are primarily responsible for whether they are chosen for destruction or salvation, for whether they become objects of wrath or objects of mercy (see 2 Timothy 2:20-21 and comment).

It is not possible to say with certainty which of these two ideas is the correct one. There is clearly much truth on both sides. Perhaps, in some way that is beyond our understanding, both of these ideas are equally true and represent two sides of one great truth. But whichever of these ideas we prefer, there still remains one essential truth on which all believers can agree: namely, that salvation is granted to all men and women who truly repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ. This is the Gospel of Christ. More than this we do not need to know.

23-24 Who, then, are the objects of [God’s] mercy? (verse 23). They are those men and women who have faith, who have been chosen by God from before the creation of the world—even us, whom he also called (verse 24). We believers are the “objects of God’s mercy,” to whom He has shown the riches of his glory (see Ephesians 1:18; 3:16).

25 Here Paul quotes from the Old Testament prophet Hosea. The Gentiles had not at first been God’s people. But then, through faith, they became God’s people. At first, only the Jews were considered by God to be “my people”; and only Israel was called “my loved one” (Hosea 2:23; 1 Peter 2:10).

26 But then the Gentiles, who were not God’s people, became sons of the living God through faith in Christ. In other words, no longer did the “true Israel” consist only of Jews by birth, but it now included all those who believed in Christ (Hosea 1:10; Romans 9:6).

27-28 Here Paul quotes from the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. Isaiah says that only a few Jews, a remnant, will be saved—namely, those Jews who believe in Jesus Christ (Isaiah 10:22-23).

29 Here Isaiah says that if God had not left some descendants of Abraham—that is, a “remnant” of Jews—all the Jews would have come to destruction, like the inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9). God destroyed those two Old Testament cities, because of the wickedness of their inhabitants (Genesis 19:1-29)

The Reason for Israel’s Unbelief (9:30-33)

30 The Gentiles did not pursue righteousness according to the written Jewish law; in the end, they obtained righteousness through faith (Romans 3:22).

31-33 Israel (the Jews), on the other hand, pursued a law of righteousness (verse 31), but didn’t obtain it. Why didn’t they obtain it? Because they did not have faith; rather, they tried to obtain righteousness by works (verse 32). They trusted in their own efforts. They said: “Because we are descendants of Abraham by birth, surely we must be children of God.” But in thinking this, they had made a big mistake. Even though they were indeed God’s chosen people on the basis of their natural descent from Abraham, in the end they lost the privilege of being God’s people, God’s children, because of their refusal to believe in Christ. Our election, our righteousness, our salvation are all by faith, not by works. Most of the Jews tried to obtain righteousness and salvation by their own religious works, and they failed. The Gentiles, who in the Jews’ eyes didn’t even pursue righteousness, ended up obtaining it—through faith.

In verse 33, Paul quotes again from Isaiah. Zion is another name for the Jewish nation of Israel. The Jews stumbled over the “stumbling stone” (verse 32). That “stumbling stone” was Jesus Christ. When the Jews rejected Christ, they lost their salvation—that is, they stumbled (Isaiah 8:14; 28:16). The Jews could not believe that their Savior—who the Old Testament had promised would come—would turn out to be the son of an ordinary carpenter and then, worse than that, end up dying on a cross like a lowly criminal. Instead of worshiping such a Savior, they despised Him. Therefore, Christ became for the Jews a “stumbling stone” over which they stumbled and fell (see 1 Corinthians 1:23; 1 Peter 2:8 and comments).

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