The first eight chapters of Romans, Paul reveals some never before known truths about God and how He works in the lives of people.
…That we are all sinners and as a result…we are all under God’s wrath and therefore cannot save or justify ourselves…something the Jewish believer would not have believed…because we know the Law makes us righteous.
…That God has graciously removed that wrath and declared us justified… just as if I had never sinned…that is the message of Romans.
…That we are no longer guilty because of our faith in Jesus…who provided the means for us to be righteous in God’s sight.
Paul then concludes chapter 8 with two promises of assurance:
…FIRST…we are no longer under God’s wrath…He sees us as sin-free…and
…SECOND…Paul finishes this portion of Romans with the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That is the meaning…the reason…the purpose…and the whole rational…of God’s plan for humanity…Bible theology 101.
Chapter 9 begins another major section of Romans…he changes his tone from his passionate confidence of God’s love in which nothing can separate us from God’s love at the end of chapter 8 to one of deep sorrow…regret …and grief.
Paul is so distressed over Israel’s lack of faith in Christ that he says he would be willing if it were possible…to give up his place in Heaven…to separate himself from Christ, if only his fellow Jews would realize who Jesus is.
SO…why did God choose Israel in the first place…above all the other nations who were on the earth at that time?
The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the people, for you were the fewest of all peoples. [Deut. 7:7]
Not because of your righteousness [Deut. 9:4]
But because the Lord loved you ]Deut. 7:8]
The immediate question if you were Jewish…based on your knowledge of Old Testament Scriptures and God’s promises of providing His love and protection to them…why then is Paul suggesting that:
not all who are descended from Israel (Jacob) are Israel.
Again…this is brand new teaching…this goes against everything written in the Old Testament…where’s Paul coming up with this?…Scripture declares that all those born in Abraham’s bloodline are his natural descendants…BUT…now Paul’s saying…not all those born in Abraham’s bloodline are his descendants.
Israel’s failure to come to faith in Jesus is not an indication that God’s promises have failed…Paul clarifies this to his imaginary friend in verse eight:
it is not as though the word of God has failedOn the contrary, God’s purpose has always been through Israel…Paul is now revealing it has always been through the spiritual remnant of physical Israel.
KEY…Here’s the revelation…not all who are born in Abraham’s bloodline are his descendants…only those born of faith like Abraham…understanding this is the starting point of interpreting Romans 9 – 11.
God’s promises were not made to national Israel but to spiritual Israel.
Israel’s failure to come to faith in Jesus is not an indication that God’s promises have failed…on the contrary, God’s purpose has always been through the spiritual remnant of physical Israel…affirming the privileged spiritual position of the Jews.
It’s just like the fact that not everyone in the church is saved…there is a smaller circle within the big church that really is regenerate and knows the Lord…Jesus makes reference to this spiritual remnant who is the true church [Matt 7:13].
Can we credibly put people on the Church membership roll who show no evidence of being converted…but still refer to them as being “Christian?”
Is it worthy to call people “Christians” just because they “practice” church but forsake the assembly?
Let me just say this…Nowhere in Scripture is there an explicit command to formally join a local church…however…the Biblical foundation for church membership permeates throughout the entire New Testament.
In the early church coming to Christ was coming to church…the idea of experiencing salvation without belonging to a local church is foreign to the N. T.
It is essential for every Christian to understand what church membership is and why it matters…to become a member of a church is to formally commit oneself to a local body of believers who have joined themselves together:
…for the divinely ordained purpose of being united to Christ (1 Cor. 12:13)
…to receive instructions from God’s Word (1 Tim. 4:13; 2 Tim. 4:2),
…for serving and edifying one another through spiritual gifts (Rom. 12 / 1 Cor. 12)
…to participate in the ordinances (Luke 22:19; Acts 2:38-42).
To neglect—or to refuse—to join a church as a formal member reflects a misunderstanding of the believer’s responsibility to the body of Christ…and it cuts off many of the blessings and opportunities that flow from that commitment.
Multitudes of people claim to be members of local churches without knowing the gospel…they practice being Christians by association…like the five foolish women who thought the oil of spiritual preparedness could be shared.
For these people their belief is in Christ…the healer…or the problem-solver…or the one who materially blesses…but not in Christ who was crucified to pay for the forgiveness of sin.
There is a veil of deception caused by false teachers who fail to encourage church members to practice Biblical precepts…they’re never challenged to evaluate themselves…or test themselves to see whether they are in the faith.
Instead, they wander under the delusion that they’re saved when in reality they are facing God’s wrath.
If a Christian is one who has been purchased with the blood of the one and only Son of God shouldn’t their lives resemble a life that affirms what the Bible
teaches about being led by the Spirit of God?
Living a Spirit-filled life is the distinguishing mark between those of the world and those redeemed.
There’s a fitting quote from Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones…that points out the danger that an unregenerate church member…an unbeliever…poses not only to himself but to the church as well.
When a man presents himself as a religious person, the church tends to take him for granted; because it would be an insult to question him.
The church assumes that because he acknowledges himself to be religious that he therefore is a Christian.
That is the most dangerous place for such a man to be…this is the present state the church is in…far too often those people associate with the church…and join the church who are really not following Christ…they deceive themselves believing they are saved and they deceive the church.
They are put in positions of leadership and authority without having the guidance of the Holy Spirit…they sway Church decisions without having the knowledge of Church doctrine.
Again…not everyone in the church is saved…there is a smaller circle within the big church that really is regenerate and knows the Lord…that all goes back to Paul’s statement in verse 7:
not all who are descended from Israel (Jacob) are (the sons of) Israel.
This is where Scripture becomes confusing…Paul…after making the statement about not all who are descended from Israel are Israel…begins to explain why that is…an explanation that has been debated for years.
We have an incorrect idea about how God works in the world…rarely if ever does God intervene in the affairs of men…God is not going to get involved in the Ukraine/Russian conflict…He doesn’t pick sides…He doesn’t meddle in the affairs of men.
As a result, God gets blamed for things He doesn’t do and also gets credited for things He doesn’t do.
It’s not God’s fault that planes crash…or people are killed in accidents…but people blame God for allowing it to happen.
God also gets credited for things He doesn’t do…someone miraculously survives a plane crash and it’s ‘thank you God for keeping them safe’ …but what do they say if they were killed…it goes back to the idea that God should have done something.
The reason people have incorrect ideas about how God deals with people is because people don’t take the time to seriously assess how God deals with us as humans…Paul expands on that starting in verse 7 to the end of the chapter.
He gives four examples from Israel’s history in Scripture to show why God gives His mercy to whomever He likes without the need of any explanation.
Starting in verse 14, Paul uses a rhetorical diatribe style to address objections to this line of reasoning…it’s the objection of the perception of injustice in God choosing one over another.
…First example Paul gives is God’s promise to Abraham that the promised son Isaac would be from Sarah and not by any of his other wives…they’re excluded.
…Second example was that the promise would come through Isaac even though Ishmael was his first-born…God’s divine love was set on Isaac…Ishmael was excluded.
…Third example he mentions is Rebekah’s twin sons Jacob and Esau and before either one was even born…God’s choice was Jacob over Esau because…Jacob I loved but Esau I hated [9:13]…Esau was excluded.
…Fourth example was God hardening Pharaoh’s heart and bringing the ten terrible plagues upon Egypt…while Israel was excluded.
From this comes the concept that God picks certain people while others are excluded…that God chooses certain people whom He favors while others are not even considered…to further support that idea is the quote that God told Moses:
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion [15]
The question is… ‘is that fair of God?’ Paul imagines that’s exactly what his readers would be asking.
The answer for years has been incorrectly preached…since I was a kid I have heard these verses preached…I’ve heard them taught at seminary…using the analogy in [20] that God as the creator molds some people for eternity and some for eternal destruction.
Here’s the answer that is given: [Isaiah 55:8–9 (ESV)]
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
My ways, declares the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
That’s it…that’s the best you got…that’s not an answer…that’s a I don’t know the answer so this sounds as good as any.
That answer implies that we probably won’t ever fully grasp some of God’s truths…and because God’s ways and thoughts exceed ours…and it may not seem exactly right from our perspective…we’re just required to accept it and believe it…NO!!!
Now I don’t want to get too deep but I want to give you a more scriptural answer…notice, there are in [v 22], vessels of wrath fitted to destruction… and [v 23] , vessels of mercy which He had prepared to glory.
SO…two vessels…one fitted to destruction and the other prepared to glory.
Right off the bat that should be an indication that Paul’s talking about two different groups…the wording in the Greek is crucial.
In the Greek you have two distinctions…the difference between the active and middle voices…the active voice versus the middle voice clarifies the whole misunderstanding of God’s choosing some people for destruction while choosing some for glory.
This is seen in the original language…in [22] Paul uses a Greek perfect tense middle voice participle…in the Greek it reads:
vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction
The wording…having been prepared is one word in the Greek…the perfect tense means it’s already happened…hence the wording ‘having been’ prepared.
The middle voice means the subject does the acting…‘the vessels’ who are people…are the cause and receive the action of destruction…what happens to them is their own fault.
Here’s the importance in that…in this case the subject…the vessels of wrath… initiate the action…it is people and not God that does the preparing for destruction…the more correct translation could read:
vessels of wrath having prepared (himself) for destruction
The rejection is not because of God…but because at some point in time ‘the vessels’ rejected God…and are still rejecting God…because of their own actions of rejecting God the responsibility is on their shoulders.
It’s not something God decided before they were born…that He prepared them for destruction…it’s because of their own actions of rejecting the truth that left God with no choice.
God doesn’t take that responsibility…if you study the Bible carefully, you’ll see that everywhere in Scripture the responsibility for such preparation lies right in the very heart of the man who goes to hell.
Now…in Verse 23 Paul refers to vessels of mercy which ‘He prepared beforehand’. This is also one word in the Greek. ‘He prepared beforehand’ is an aorist active verb…meaning it’s already taken place just like it reads in the English.
vessels of mercy which He had prepared beforehand.
God is the one doing the preparing…‘He prepared beforehand” …as opposed to [v 22] where the vessels of destruction…not God… is doing the action.
So, in verse 22 you have people ‘vessels’ whose own fault it is that they are fitted for destruction…in verse 23…God is the one doing the preparing.
BUT to further complicate things in verse 20 it’s as if Paul is saying… ‘Hey don’t question what God has done’.
who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this’
BUT…Paul seems to indicate that it is in fact God who makes me them like that
Does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for common use [21]
This seems to add to the idea that God chooses some for glory while others are hopelessly doomed…that it depends on how God makes us.
Paul uses an analogy taken from Jer. 18:1-11 to explain this idea…the story is about a potter who wanted to fashion one kind of vessel, but found the clay wasn’t cooperating, so he instead fashions a different kind of vessel.
This is inferred in the example of:
…God choosing Abraham over every other person in the known world
…God choosing Isaac over Ishmael
…God loving Jacob and hating Esau
It has nothing to do with the human emotions of love and hate…it has everything to do with God choosing one man over another to fulfill His purpose.
When you put the human emotion of God hating someone…the Bible could have said….because God chose Abraham out of all the men in the world… Abraham I love and every other man I hated.
God choosing Isaac instead of Abraham’s first son Ishmael…the Bible could have said…Isaac I love, and Ishmael I hated.
God choosing Jacob over Esau wasn’t God displaying the human emotion of love and hate…it is based on how receptive Jacob would be to His calling.
God steers us according to the kind of clay we make ourselves, for better or for worse…it’s your choice. When we cooperate with God it’s just like with molding clay…He changes us and fashions us for eternal blessing.
If we are rebellious, God fashions us for judgment (but even with this He’s doing this in hopes that we’ll repent). The point is…God is always willing to change us, if we are willing to change for him.
The point in the analogy isn’t about the power of the potter over the clay but the wisdom of the potter in responding to the kind of clay he’s working with and his ability to change the vessel because of his great wisdom.