By: Curtis Baker
Sometimes reading the apostle Paul is a tricky endeavor. Peter himself once said that Paul’s writings are “sometimes hard to understand,” (2 Peter 3:16) and you can believe if Peter struggled to understand Paul, so will we. With that in mind, there are few places in scripture where one struggles to understand Paul more than in Romans 9-11. It is one of Paul’s most important pieces of writings…and yet, it is also one of the most difficult to follow.
This week, we pick up the discussion in 9:14. Just to briefly review, in the first five verses of the chapter, Paul has expressed his utter anguish that many of his own people, his fellow Jews, were cut off from covenant with God because of their rejection of the Messiah. So bothered by this is Paul, that if he were able, he would offer his own self to be cursed, if only it would bring his fellow Jews back to God. Unfortunately, that option was not available. Every person must stand before God on the basis of their own life. This includes the people of Israel.
So with that in mind, in 9:6, Paul assumes a question by pondering if God’s word has failed the people of Israel. One can understand why Paul has to address this. It was a common assumption among many that merely being a child of Abraham by ethnicity made you a child of God’s promise. But in 9:6-13, Paul has showed that assumption to be false. God has always made choices among Abraham’s children, starting with Abraham’s direct children themselves. Isaac was chosen to be a part of God’s covenant, Ishmael was not. From there the trend continued; Jacob was chosen to be the child of promise, Esau was not. All are children of Abraham, but Paul’s point is that God has always made choices among Abraham’s descendants.
Having made this point, in the next few verses (9:14-18), Paul anticipates the next objection. If God has made choices among Abraham’s children, can we then charge God with being unjust? Has God been arbitrary in his choices? The answer, as you might imagine, is once again “no.” Paul does not think God is unjust or arbitrary in the way he has made his choices. His reason for saying so, however, is very specific.
To verify his point, Paul looks back to a particular event in Israel’s history. Not long after God called the people out of Egypt and freed them from their centuries of slavery, the people of Israel disobeyed God. As Moses went up on the mountain to receive God’s law for Israel, the people began to grumble in fear because Moses had been gone so long. Rather than wait, and trust the God who had delivered them through the Red Sea, they provoked Moses’ brother Aaron to make a golden calf for them to serve as their God. God was furious with the people and was prepared to destroy them all! He didn’t…Moses interceded on their behalf; but this event became prophetic of what was to come in Israel’s history. More often than not, they disobeyed God by turning to idols.
So here is Paul’s point in light of this history. It is not unjust for God to use disobedient people how he chooses. If he wants to have mercy on some he will have mercy. If he wants to have compassion, he will have compassion. If he wants to bring judgment, he will bring judgment. Just as God used the disobedience of Pharaoh to bring about the Exodus, so also will God use the disobedience of Israel to bring about his purposes.
This was not only true in days gone by, it is also true in the New Testament period. Just as Israel disobeyed God in the desert, so also did many disobey when they rejected his Messiah. But this rejection has not thwarted God’s purposes. In God’s amazing providence, he used the rejection of the Messiah to bring salvation to the whole world. This salvation is open to everyone…to the Jew first, and then to the Gentile.
(Don’t forget to join me for A Message From the Heart radio program Sunday evening at 8:00pm on KJAK 92.7FM, or streaming live at www.kjak.com)
(curtisbaker@hotmail.com)
Write to: P.O. Box 157, Slaton, TX 79364
