Chapters 9-11 of Romans form the second of three major divisions of the epistle.
Chapters 1 - 8 we may call Salvation.
Chapters 9 -11 we may call Sovereignty.
Chapters 12 -16 we may call Service.
Chapters 9-11 seem to be a long interruption in the flow of the epistle. You can read straight on from the end of ch. 8 into ch. 12 and not sense any break in the argument. The reason Paul wrote these chapters was to square the Gospel with the facts - in particular, the facts about God's chosen people the Jews.
The great bulk of Jews in Paul's day had become enemies of the Gospel. It was at their hands he and his fellow Christians suffered most. And the big question that raised was: "What has become of God's promises to them?"
Paul has just brought his statement of the Gospel to a stirring climax: "I am persuaded that nothing in all creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." But there were many in Paul's day who would have replied: "Are you indeed? Well, what about the Jews? What about His love for them? Despite His long relations with them in the past, He has cast them off, hasn't He! What has become of all His promises to them? God is changeless in His love, you say ... but He has changed toward them! Unless you can square the Gospel with the fate of the Jews, how can we believe it?"
It is not a question that troubles us much today. But it should. It is a real question, and with the passage of the centuries it has not become any easier to answer than when Paul faced it back at the beginning. Paul says we can trust God because He has chosen us: but He chose the Jews once; much good it has done them! The way Paul leads off in vs. 4-6 catalogues the considerations which present the difficulty: "They are Israelites, and to them belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship, and the promises!" What has become of those promises? It looks as though "the Word of God has failed" in their case (to use Paul's phrase in v. 6). So Paul has to tackle the problem. In doing so, he will lead us to even greater and more splendid heights in his exposition of the Gospel, and in his praise of God.
His argument follows the same pattern we have already observed. Each paragraph ends with a summary statement which wraps up the paragraph he has just written, and introduces the next. And most times, he picks up that introduction with a question, "What shall we say then?" or "I ask then ..." or "You will ask ..." Following that rule, his thought divisions come at 9:14, 9:30, 11:1, and 11:11. Make the section breaks at those points, and the outline can be sketched in.
1. 9: 1 - 5 The Problem Stated
What about Israel?
2. 9: 6 - 13 The Solution Stated
Faith not works
3. 9:14 - 29 First Question
Is God Unjust?
4. 9:30 - 10:21 Second Question
Was Israel deceived?
5. 11:1 - 10 Third Question
Has God rejected Israel?
6. 11:11 - 24 Fourth Question
Has Israel any hope?
7. 11:25 - 36 Conclusion
Sovereign Grace
The 'Israel' to whom the promises were made was from the beginning the 'Israel of Faith' not 'Israel after the Flesh.'
"Let's get that straight first," Paul says. It is a point he makes many times in his letters. "The true Jew is he who is one inwardly, and real circumcision (i.e. real membership in the community of those who enjoy a covenant relationship with God) is a matter of the heart: spiritual, not literal." (Rom. 2:29)
The true descendants of Abraham are those who "believe God as Abraham believed Him," (4:12) not his mere physical offspring - those who share his faith, not those merely who are born of his loins (4:16).
The promises of God are made to those who believe them.
That has been the truth of the matter from the beginning: nothing has changed in the Gospel age. That will be Paul's point again in 11:20: what disqualified the Jews from inheriting the promises was their failure of faith, and only faith qualifies us who are Gentiles to inherit them.
The failure of the Jews to inherit the promises only serves to confirm the truth of the Gospel, not to invalidate it. It is faith, and faith alone, that 'rightwises' human beings to God. Nothing else ever does; nothing else ever has, in any age; nothing else ever can. Nothing in the history of the Jews, past present or future, can change one jot or tittle of that. Faith, and faith alone, has from the dawn of time been the only basis on which God relates to men, and it will be the only basis on which He can relate to men until the end of time.
The next section is one which many find to be one of the most objectionable passages in the Bible! "God has mercy on whomever He wills, and He hardens the heart of whomever He wills" (v. 18) for "It (salvation) depends, not upon man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy." (v. 16)
Here is Paul's statement of the mystery of our election to salvation. And there is no getting round it: our salvation depends, not upon our decision for God, but upon His decision for us, and there is nothing we can do about it. If God decides for us, we are saved. If He does not, we are doomed.
It sticks in our craw, this. And the reason? Because we are not cleansed of Adam's sin!
The temptation he faced was, "You will be as God, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:5) He desired to be as God. He aspired to have the entire disposition of all things to himself. "I shall have the absolute power to determine the rights and wrongs of all things. My freedom is supreme, and not God Himself shall interfere with it."
Wrong. God is God in this world, not we.
We have not come into a relationship with God that can stand for two minutes together until we have faced the challenge of these verses and have met it with entire submission: that our entire well-being rests on God's decision for us, and nothing else. Until we have, we are not cleansed of the filth that is in us - that we, not God, shall be God.
"It is a denial of my freedom!" you cry?
No, it is an affirmation of God's freedom. His freedom comes before ours. He is God, not you or I.
We are offended by this? ... so we rage against this Word of God ... so we resist submission to it? So be it. The truth remains: God is sovereign; not you, not I, not anyone in this world. Not your notions of justice, not my notions of justice, not anyone's notions of justice is the measure of what is good and what is evil in this world; what God is, and what He decrees on the ground of what He is, is the only measure of what is good and what is evil.
Our very unwillingness to accept that is itself the evidence of the magnitude and heinousness of the sin that is in us. How can God have mercy on our soul when His mercy is a thing we despise because we see it as a threat to our autonomy?
If you or I are to be saved, it will be of God's mercy that we are saved. His mercy. And the mercy of God is a thing none can oblige Him to show. He is under no necessity to show it, save as it pleases Him to do so.
I cannot demand it. I cannot require it of Him. I cannot.
That leaves me prostrate at the feet of God, trembling in utter helplessness. There is nothing I can plead - nothing. There is not a word I can say. There is not a thing I can do ... but wait in trembling silence to know whether He will decide for me or against me. **
The miracle is that when a man is there, he finds God is for him!
Until then, God is against him: "The Lord resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you." (I Peter 5:5-6)
Unless it shall please God have mercy on my soul, there is no remedy for me at all. And mercy is above desert. All we deserve is doom; it is all we deserve. That is the only thing justice can accord us. If mercy is to be shown us, it will be of God's unmerited graciousness - because it pleases HIM to bestow it, not because He is under any necessity to do so ... and certainly not because we deem it right. We have no claim upon mercy at all.
Not until we know this do we know the grace of God. But then we know it! Then we know that His grace - the favour we have forfeited, but which it pleases Him, incredibly, to pour out upon us so we are forgiven all our sins and received wholly into His intimate friendship - is the most miraculous, the most marvellous, the most beautiful, the most splendid and shining mystery in all the universe of His creation.
His grace alone shall save us - and His grace, through all ages, shall be all our song.
Now we briefly summarise what remains.
If salvation has always depended on faith and if the promises are only ever made to faith, was Israel deceived when God gave her the Law? ... as though He misled her thereby into believing that her acceptance depended, not on faith at all, but on works?
"No," says Paul, "God did not deceive her. Her own pride deceived her."
That is the burden of 9:30 - 10:21. That is why Paul brings in Deut. 30:11-14, where Moses testified to the Israelites that the commandment was not too hard for them, nor so high as to be unreachable. "It is very near you," he told them, "in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it."
In the context of those chapters, the whole point is that obedience was possible to them because of the living presence of the living God in their midst; if they believed in Him Who was so near to them, nothing would be impossible to them. And all Paul does is press home that same truth to the Christian by saying, "God is just as present to you ... in the person of Christ in the heart."
The fifth section, 11:1-10, deals with the question, "Has God, then, rejected His people?" and the answer given is "No."
"I am one of them," Paul says by way of answer: "He has not rejected me! ... nor countless numbers of others."
Remembering always that the People of God is the Community of Faith (only the Community of Faith qualifies for the title), it is quite clear that God has not rejected His people.
Many among them have rejected Him. But that is not the same thing at all.
The final question Paul tackles is: "Is there any hope, then, for Israel?" and he answers, "Yes, O yes."
The answer is one we can only understand, I believe, when we have faced the challenge which we confronted above. If we will not go through the narrow door that challenge presents, we will not see what here lies beyond it. Only when we wear the thinking cap of humility which that experience gives us can we come to grips with Paul's answer here.
It is not a simple answer, for it is not a simple problem. But its thrust is that "God turns even the wrath of man to praise Him."
There is mystery in God's dealings with his creatures - a mystery made up of conflicting elements compounded together in seemingly impossible ways ... of sin and forgiveness of sin, of judgment and of mercy, of freedom and necessity, of failure and of success achieved through failure.
It leaves the Apostle open-mouthed in astonishment: more, it leaves him worshipping in wonder, love and praise.
"From Him, and through Him, and unto Him are all things."
The sovereignty of God, though it be a thing before which mere mortals must tremble in fear for their very souls, is yet a thing which will be the cause of their trembling joy and praise in such measure that eternity itself will not be able to satisfy it, and with such intensity that not even the redeemed life we shall be given in glory will be able to exhaust its ecstasy.
"O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways. From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory for ever. Amen."
* I have to say it; not to do so would be a dereliction of duty. I write as a servant of God, and I have my obedience to give as you have yours; if you hate me for it, I am truly sorry. But I am under necessity: woe to me if I fail to declare the whole counsel of God.
This material is copyright; it may not be published, quoted or reproduced without permission, nor may it be preached without acknowledgment!
BACK TO SITE HOME PAGE