ROMANS 9
The intelligent reader of this epistle, whether Jew or Gentile, who had followed the teaching of Paul to the point reached in chapter 8, would find arising in his mind the questions, But what about Israel! What about the ancient promises and God’s faithfulness to them? The apostle now turns to speak of this, and in a most affecting way he tells us of his great grief, and of the uninterrupted pain in his heart for his kinsmen according to flesh. Their condition, and the present ways of God with them, were not to [p. 165] him merely of interest as connected with the unfolding of dispensational truth. He was truly in the Spirit of Christ; it was an intense grief to him to think of their missing the great favour and blessing of which he had been writing. He had wished, in a similar way to Moses, that he could be a curse from the Christ for them. His love for them had exceeded anything that was natural to man; it was a flame kindled from the love of Jehovah and of His Christ for the people of His choice. Israel was in his heart according to the illustrious place which she held according to promise, and in the ways of God: “Whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers; and of whom, as according to flesh, is the Christ; who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen”.
It is good for us, as believers from among the Gentiles, to remember that all these things pertain to Israel. We come at the present time into the gain and blessedness of them, for none of these things have lapsed, but they really belong to Israel, and will yet be known and enjoyed by Israel. God’s called ones of the Gentiles have the value of them now, but they are really divine wealth which God has conferred upon Israel, and which cannot be alienated from Israel.
But then, the apostle reasons, there is a difference between “Israel” in a divine or spiritual sense, and those who are “of Israel” in a natural way. It is not “the children of the flesh” that are “the children of God”; those who are “reckoned as seed” in a divine sense are “the children of the promise”. They come in, as Isaac did, not on the line of nature, but [p. 166] on the line of promise. The true seed are the subject of promise; that is, they come in directly from God, the product of His favour. How instructive is this for the Gentile as well as the Israelite! Nothing that is merely of nature is “reckoned as seed”. “It is needful that ye should be born anew”, John 3: 7. Notice the emphatic “ye” in the Lord’s word to Nicodemus; it shuts out all hope of blessing by natural descent even from Abraham.
Then Paul insists on divine sovereignty — a principle of the utmost importance. Rebecca’s children were not yet born, they had not done anything, either good or worthless, when it was said to her, “The greater shall serve the less”. This was pure sovereignty; it was “That the purpose of God according to election might abide, not of works, but of him that calls”. The whole of the epistle is addressed to those whom God has called (chapter 1: 7), and in chapter 8 the saints are definitely spoken of as “God’s elect”, and His calling is seen to be the outcome of His foreknowledge and predestination. Shall we then quarrel with the truth of God’s sovereignty? Surely not; we will rather greatly rejoice in it, for it is, as verses 15, 16, show us, a sovereignty of mercy. Every believer has much cause to be thankful for God’s sovereignty; apart from it we should all have been lost eternally. There is no more beautiful or affecting designation of believers than the one contained in this chapter — “vessels of mercy”! All the natural tendencies of our hearts would have carried us away from God, and kept us away from Him, just as Israel went after the golden calf. If we have learned in any measure the instability that is in ourselves, it makes us thankful for divine sovereignty. There is no stability save [p. 167] as we become connected with the source of all stability in the blessed God Himself. Where would Israel have been in Exodus 32 and 33, but for the sovereignty of mercy? Just where we should all have been — consumed by the anger of God! But in sovereignty he shows mercy and feels compassion.
The most powerful and persistent adversary of God and His people can only fulfil in wickedness what God permits, and may prove the sovereignty of God in a terrible way, his evil course bringing upon him judicial hardening so that God’s power is shown in him in the way of judgment. Such it was with Pharaoh. How calculated is this to strike terror into any who go on in high-handed opposition to God! His power is sovereign, and if men persist in wickedness they may find themselves singled out to be examples in the universe of the power of God in judgment. How terrible is the thought! Is it not enough to bring the proudest Pharaoh to his knees as a penitent? God in sovereignty may show mercy or may harden. Let every sinful creature then make haste to submit to Him! He never hardened a repentant sinner; He always has mercy for such; He sets forth Christ Jesus as a Mercy-seat for them.
If men will rebel against God’s sovereignty, and say, “Why does he yet find fault! for who resists his purpose?” Paul has a brief answer: “Aye, but thou, O man, who art thou that answerest again to God?” It is for man, the creature, to submit himself to God. None of the reasonings of men can alter the fact that God is God, and being God He is sovereign. The only hope for a sinful creature is to submit himself to God, to own his condition, to place himself before God as a subject of mercy, to receive [p. 168] the glad tidings which are going forth, as sent by a Saviour God, “for obedience of faith among all the nations”.
Paul puts everything here on the ground of sovereignty, whether it be the wrath and power of God coming upon “vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction”, or the making known the riches of His glory “upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory”. But when he speaks of the vessels of wrath he does not fail to tell us that God “endured with much long-suffering”. He did not fit them for destruction; that was the result of their own persistent evil, which He “endured with much long-suffering”. God is never in a hurry to judge evil; He gives time for repentance; He waits until the evil is full-blown. He said to Abram, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” (Genesis 15: 16); He “endured with much long-suffering” for four hundred years longer. And Peter tells us that “the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noe while the ark was preparing”, 1 Peter 3: 20. When His wrath and power in the judgment of persistent evil are known, it will be manifest that there is no unrighteousness with God. His sovereignty in judgment is a righteous sovereignty, and it only comes in at the end of “much long-suffering”.
But, on the other hand, God is minded to “make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory, us, whom he has also called, not only from amongst the Jews, but also from amongst the nations”. This is the purpose of His sovereign love. We have seen in chapter 8 that His sons and children are going to be revealed in glory for the setting free of creation from vanity [p. 169] and bondage. But here they are spoken of as “vessels of mercy” to enhance the pure sovereignty of their calling, and of the divine working by which they are “prepared for glory”. The preparation is going on now, on the line of those moral exercises and divine teachings which have come before us in the earlier chapters of this epistle, and it will result in the saints being set forth in the wide creation as the display of the riches of God’s glory. But this will give no praise to the creature; the vessels in which the glory is displayed will simply be, in themselves, “vessels of mercy”. They will be there, whether from amongst the Jews or the nations, as “called” in the sovereignty of mercy. A remnant of Israel alone would not have been a large enough vessel to hold the riches of God’s glory; those of the nations had to come in also.
The prophet Hosea is quoted to show that it was after God had said to Israel, “Ye are not my people”, that He would call them, “My people”. They will become His people on the ground of sovereign mercy alone, after having forfeited all claim and title to be so. When God said, “Ye are not my people”, He put them in the same place as the nations, and it is as being in that place that He will bless them sovereignly. “There shall they be called Sons of the living God”. But this opens the door for the nations also to be blessed, who were manifestly not God’s people; if God is pleased to call them in the sovereignty of His mercy, they can be called “Sons of the living God”.
Hosea (meaning, Deliverance) is a touching book as bringing out the faithful affections of Jehovah towards a most unfaithful people, and showing how,
[p. 170] after all their failure, He will secure them for Himself on the line of His own faithfulness and sovereignty. His heart was pained to have to say, “Not my people”, “not beloved”, but such was their unfaithfulness that He had to say it. Israel according to the flesh was that; not one whit better than the nations. But Israel by the calling of God will yet be “My people”, “Beloved”, “Sons of the living God”. If Israel gets this place purely by the calling of God in mercy, those from amongst the nations can have it by God’s calling also, as Paul has already shown in this epistle. If all is on the ground of sovereignty, God can call whom He pleases, Jew or Gentile.
As regards Israel, it was clear from the prophetic word that only a remnant would be saved; if the Lord had not left a “seed” the nation would have been as Sodom and Gomorrah. “And it shall come to pass in that day that the remnant of Israel ... shall rely upon Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truth. The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God. For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return”, Isaiah 10: 20 - 22. God would secure a remnant, and judge all evil in His people at large. This explained the position as regards Israel. A remnant from among them was being secured, but of the nation at large he can only say that “Israel, pursuing after a law of righteousness, has not attained to that law. Wherefore? Because it was not on the principle of faith, but as of works”. Instead of Christ being to them “a sanctuary”, He became a “stone of stumbling and rock of offence” (see Isaiah 8: 14). Still it had remained true that He was laid “[p. 171] for foundation in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation”, Isaiah 28: 16. The apostle brings together the two scriptures, for, though he was speaking at the moment of Christ as the stumbling stone according to Isaiah 8, his heart would not allow him to forget His preciousness as the sure Foundation according to Isaiah 26. Nor does he fail to add, “and he that believes on him shall not be ashamed”.
But while Israel the nation stumbles over Christ, and seeks righteousness as of works, “They of the nations, who did not follow after righteousness, have attained righteousness, but the righteousness that is on the principle of faith”. The former part of the epistle has shown how it has become available for them.