Romans 9:1-5

 

With Romans 9 we have a very abrupt shift in Romans. To understand why, we have to briefly review Paul's argument up to this point. Romans 1:16-17 are the key verses of Romans. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.” 

As we've already discussed, one of the key ideas of Romans is the Righteousness of God—the righteousness which God possesses and which He imparts to those who receive it in faith. In chapters 1-4, Paul shows how all the world—both Jew and Gentile—were guilty before God and could find justification only by faith. In chapters 5-8, Paul shifts focus to the transformation that God works in the hearts and lives of believers so that the righteousness of God becomes a practical reality.

That is what we have established so far; that is the righteousness of God which is revealed to and in the just who live by faith; that is the gospel of Christ of which Paul was not ashamed. But we should note something else about those verses: “To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” The Roman church, as we established earlier, was a hybrid church, filled with both Jews and Gentiles. And Paul had confidence that the gospel was for both of them. A good portion of Romans up to this point was aimed at showing that the Jews had no special claim on God; that they needed to find salvation through faith just like the Gentiles. Romans is about the Gospel of Christ--not simple Judaism.

And all of that brings us to a problem. The late David Phelps labeled this section of Romans with the question: “What about the Jews?” Because the gospel seemed to stripe the Jews of all their special privileges, giving them nothing except what they could find through faith. And the truth was that many of the Jews did not have faith. Many of the Jews did not believe in Jesus. And so, by the logic of the gospel, they were shut out. They did not have faith and so could not be of the just who lived.

I wonder if this theme was suggested to Paul by the ending of Romans 8. If you remember, at the end of Romans 8, Paul was encouraging believers with the assurance that nothing could get in the way of God's love, nothing could nullify or frustrate God's love. And yet God had professed to love the Jews and, to the Jews, it seemed as if God had deserted them. E. M. Blaiklock expressed the feeling of the Jews, saying that it seemed that “[T]he Messiah brought condemnation, not redemption, to the mass of the 'chosen people'... God appeared... to have broken the ancient covenant with Israel.”

This is the problem Paul faced. And it was not simply a problem of a poor attitude on the part of some Jews. It was the problem of God's plan. Here Paul is taking a panoramic view, trying to see the whole of God's plan in both the Old and New Testaments and their relationship to each other in order to understand this problem of the Jews and God's apparent rejection of His chosen people.

This section is the general introduction to the topic, showing Paul's own feelings on the matter. He begins with a solemn statement attesting to his sincerity regarding what he is about to say. Paul wanted to make it perfectly clear that he was in earnest; he wanted, as much as possible, to clear up any doubts regarding where he stood. 

“I say the truth... I lie not.” Here we have two different ways of stating the fact that he was being honest and forthright in the word. “I say the truth in Christ.” He spoke as one in Christ, as a Christian, as somebody who (theoretically) shouldn't be lying, someone whose word could be trusted. Some understand this to be an oath: that he is calling upon Christ, as the searcher of the heart, to witness to his honesty. “My conscience also bearing my witness in the Holy Ghost.” Here Paul's own conscience as well as the Holy Spirit are also called in as witnesses. All of this shows us how serious this was to Paul and how urgently he felt about making sure his readers believed him.

But what did he want them to believe? “That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.” Robertson translates “continual sorrow” as “unceasing pain in my heart” and compares it to a medical condition where there is continuous pain in the area of the heart. And this pain and grief were because of the Jews as we see in the next verses.

Paul's personal mission as an apostle was to reach the Gentiles, but that didn't mean that he had ceased to care about the Jews. At least half of all the pain and inconvenience that Paul experienced in his career was because of the Jews, but that didn't mean that he had ceased to care about the Jews. Though Paul didn't know this when writing Romans, he would end up spending several years in prison specifically because of the Jews, but I'm certain that would not and did not change his concern for his people.  

And because he cared so much for them, and because so many of them had rejected the gospel, he had continual sorrow for them. William Newell comments regarding this issue of the Jews: “The trouble with us Gentiles is, that we have become accustomed to it, we take it for granted.” This was not the case for Paul.

In fact, he was so burdened and concerned he could have wished himself to be cursed if that would have saved the Jews; he would have been willing to be devoted to destruction, to be cast out and eliminated for them, to suffer and die so that they might live if that were possible. In that way, the feeling of his heart was like that of his Lord who was willing to suffer humiliation, pain, and death to save His people from their sin.

Some have taken this phrase “accursed from Christ” as meaning “damned”--that Paul was almost willing to be lost eternally if that could somehow save the Jewish people. The idea of someone being damned to save somebody else doesn't make logical sense, but Paul is not necessarily writing here as a logician. And however you interpret these words, the main idea to take away is the depth of Paul's passion and desire for his people.

The rest of verse 3 and the beginning of verse 4 tell us exactly for whom it was that Paul had this passion. It was for his brethren, his kinsmen, the Israelites. 

When we talk about “the problem of the Jews” we must remember that this wasn't an abstraction for Paul. “The Jews” weren't some distant people group. They were his people, his family. 

We know next to nothing about Paul's immediate family. In fact, we have only one direct statement regarding them. Following Paul's arrest in Jerusalem, a group of radical Jews concocted a plot to assassinate him. And do you remember how that plot was discovered? Paul's nephew heard about it and revealed it to Paul. Which brings up the question--how was it that Paul's nephew was in a position to hear about a radical Jewish assassination plot? There are countless possibilities, but I can't help but wonder if perhaps members of Paul's own family were involved in that plot.

Obviously, that is pure speculation and there is zero evidence. But it is possible and it shows us the kind of thing Paul may have had to face. When Paul spoke of his brethren and his kinsmen he may have meant that quite literally and quite closely.

So we have to be clear about the issue: the Jewish people were Paul's people, his family, his nation. And it seemed as if the gospel had left them behind; as if God had moved on and forgotten them by introducing a new and different plan of salvation which gave nothing special to the Jews; a new plan of salvation which most of the Jews had not accepted and had even actively fought against.

And this problem was all the more pressing when you consider all that the Jews had. Verse 4-5 enumerates all the great privileges God had given the Jews.

God had given them:

(1) Adoption. Exodus 4:22 contains the message that God gave Moses to give to Pharaoh regarding the deliverance of the Israelites: “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.” God had adopted the Jewish nation so that it could be considered His son. The word Paul uses for adoption is a legal term and may carry with it the specific idea of inheritance, that the Jews had been adopted by God in order to have an inheritance, which was the Promised Land.

(2) The Glory. This seems to refer to the fact that during certain periods of Jewish history, God revealed His glory to them in a physical manifestation. Though, as Paul said earlier in Romans, God gave a revelation to all mankind, God showed Himself to the Jews in a way that was different from anything any other nation had received. Only the Jews could say that God had revealed Himself so clearly and so consistently. There was a time when people would be proud to say that some famous person had stayed in their house. Only the Jews could all-but say that God had once stayed at their house.

(3) The Covenants. Not just once, but many times God had entered into a covenant with them. The most interesting is probably the covenant with Abraham when God came down in some sort of physical manifestation to go through the form of a covenant with Abraham. It sounds incredible to the point of being comic to imagine the God of all the universe coming down to a lawyer's office to cosign a contract with someone, but that is basically what happened between God and Abraham. Even ignoring the content of these covenants, the mere fact that God had entered into a covenant with Abraham and his descendants was a wonder.

(4) The Law. God had given the Jewish people His law. Though the whole of the Old Testament can be considered as God's law, this probably means specifically the law which God gave at Mt. Sinai which begins with the Ten Commandments. We've talked about how much the Jews treasured and prized the fact that God had given them the law. As I said before, God had given some sort of revelation to all mankind. In some sense, all codes of morality found around the world came from God; only the Jews could say that God had literally written a law and given it to them.

(5) The Service of God; that is, the forms of worship established in the Pentateuch and which was carried out in the tabernacle and then later in the Temple. At the time Paul was writing, this form of worship—a form given directly by God—was still being carried out in Jerusalem. 

(6) The Promises. God had made many promises to Abraham and to his descendants. Remember that the Old Testament was almost exclusively written by and written to Jews; all the promises we can find there were given to the Jews even if they were not exclusively for the Jews. 

(7) The Fathers; that is, the patriarchs. This is something that isn't as meaningful to people today since most people aren't especially concerned about their ancestors. But there was a time—and for some people still today—it was very valuable to be able to trace your ancestry to someone notable or important. And the Jews could trace their lineage back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, men who (despite some obvious failings) had been great men and unusually used by God. And there were many other notable men within the Jewish nation—to be a Jew meant belonging to the same family as Joseph, as David, as Isaiah or Daniel. If national or ethnic pride is an ideal you recognize, then you understand that the Jews had something to be proud of.

(8) Christ. As great as it would be to belong to the same family as someone like David, the Jews could claim something greater; something that almost boggles the mind. The Jews could claim to be the family of Jesus. Jesus, as concerning the flesh—that is, biologically and ethnically—was a Jew, the son of a Jewish woman who could trace her lineage back to Abraham. When God came to Earth, he came as a Jew. The Jews could count among their number the physical incarnation of the all-powerful, all-mighty, God.

That is what the Jews had; this is what they could list in their positive column. If there were any people who could claim special privilege from God, it should have been the Jews. If there were any nation that could have safely been complacent in the assurance of God's acceptance, it should have been the Jews. They could list things no other nation could boast; God had done for them and had promised to them things unlike God's working in any other nation. And yet, now, they seemed to have nothing. The gospel had no special place for the Jews and many, perhaps most, of the Jews had no place for the gospel.

This is the problem of the Jews. And we have to remember why it was a problem. It wasn't just that the Jews didn't like what was happening. It was that God seemingly had failed His people. The Jews might have set up some false merits for themselves, but all of this list are things that God had given them. God had chosen them and used them—and He had seemingly thrown them aside now that they were no longer useful like a man throwing away an old, broken tool. 

This was the problem and Paul, as a Jew, fully felt the force of it. Many of those he was writing to were Jews and they would have fully felt the force of it. And though the Gentiles in the church might not have been quite as concerned, they might have been puzzled about what God was doing; as some are still puzzled.

This is the problem that Paul will deal with from this point through the end of chapter 11. But though Paul did face this as a problem, he also saw something above the problem. Notice the end of verse 5: “Who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” The main point of this seems to be to emphasize the deity of Christ, because of the point I made before—that it was God in human form who was born as a Jewish man. But this also rises into a sort of doxology or word of praise. Paul not infrequently bursts into these doxologies in the middle of his writing, and I can't help but think there may be a specific reason here.

Because even if Paul was troubled by what he saw in the world, even if the situation of the Jews caused him great pain, he was certain of one thing—that God was in control and that what God was doing was right. 

And that assurance forms the basis of all that Paul will say later. The essence of Paul's argument in these chapters is that God has a plan that He is working out, throughout all of history and specifically in His working with the Jews. And God's plan is ultimately a plan, not for the Jews, not for the Gentiles, but for the entire world.