Welcome Gentiles

Series on Romans

XIII Election and Grace

C The Application

Text: 9:25-33

Introduction

For centuries the Jewish people, the children of Abraham regarded the Christian faith as a heresy. For centuries the house of God had a sign on the door saying Jews only. Then Jesus came and the welcome sign appeared on the door of God’s house saying Gentiles welcome. For many of them in the first century when Paul wrote Romans the prejudice against Gentiles was strong enough to evoke persecution. The Apostle has just concluded the last section with the affirmation that the objects of God’s mercy were Gentiles as well as Jews. One of the great ironies of history is that Israel not only rejected its true Messiah, Jesus Christ, but regarded those who followed Him as traitors. They did this in spite of the fact that their Scriptures constantly reminded them that, although God had chosen them, He was not “their” God alone, but the God of all nations, and they were chosen to make God known to other nations. In practice they became so insular and isolated in their identity that it was impossible for them to fulfill their destiny under God. Most of the theological struggles of Paul in his letters are about the Jewish people insisting that the Gentiles had to become Jews meaning they had to be circumcised and follow a kosher diet prescribed in their ceremonial law. They were called Judaizers. Both Jesus and Paul insisted that the true children of Abraham were not his physical descendants, but those who shared his faith. In John 8:37-39 we read, You are descendants of Abraham, I know; but you want to kill me, because my teaching gains no ground within you. The words I speak are those I have learned in the presence of the Father. Therefore you also should do what you have heard from your father.” “Our father is Abraham,” they said. “If you were Abraham’s children,” replied Jesus, “it is Abraham’s deeds that you would be doing.” Thus the Scriptures were ignored and the message that the gospel was for all was lost to the children of Israel. Today we look at the relevant Scriptures as Paul quotes them in Romans 9, and we perceive here a retribution, a redemption and a rule.

I The Retribution

The first thing that was clearly prophesied in the Old Testament was the failure of Israel and the judgment to follow as recorded here in Paul’s quotations from Isaiah in verses 27-29, Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” Few of Israel would be saved and the remainder cast off because Jesus came unto His own people and His own did not receive Him. One of the prominent features of Jesus prophecies had to do with the destruction of Jerusalem as in Matthew 24. He repeatedly warned His people in parables that the time was running out. When John the Baptist came he told the nation to repent and warned them that the axe was already at the tree of Israel. He also told them that God could raise up children for Abraham out of the stones. At the beginning of His ministry, in Luke 4 Jesus comes to the synagogue in Nazareth where he grew up. He reads from the scroll of Isaiah, chapter 61, in Luke 4:17-21, And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised, To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears. If you look at Isaiah 61 you will see that the prophecy goes on after the words, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,” to say, “And the day of vengeance of our God.” The listeners should have known the rest of the prophecy and although the Lord purposely did not read those words on this occasion of beginning His ministry, nevertheless, that is why He came, not just to bring redemption as in the Jubilee but also to bring judgment. Isaiah’s prediction of retribution to unbelieving Israel is about to come to fulfillment. Paul thus explains the plight of his people who reject their Messiah and Christ.

II The Redemption

The redemption of all those who do receive Jesus including Gentiles is also prophesied in the words of Hosea in verses 25 and 26, As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” The Old Testament is replete with intimations of God’s purpose to save men from every tribe and nation and to be glorified as the true God among all the peoples of the earth. For example in Isaiah 2:3 and 4 we read a prophecy, Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. This does not sound like a God who belongs only to Israel. In Isaiah 52:10 we read, The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. In Psalm 97:6 it says, The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory, and in Psalm 98:2, The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations…all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. The nation Israel, up to and including the time of Jesus, grew progressively isolated in its determination to “build a hedge” around the law, as they put it. This inclined them to interpret all of these passages referring to the universal worship of Jahweh as predictions that their nation would be elevated to the top of the heap, and that their Messiah would come and lead them in triumph over the whole earth and would subjugate all the other nations. Needless to say, the Triune God, and Jesus in His ministry, did not have this in mind. The promise God made at the beginning to Abraham, their father according to the flesh, was that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. In reality that blessing was that they would inherit the spiritual grace, favor and faith of Abraham and not that they would be subjugated to Abraham’s people and their God. In the gospel this has occurred as witnessed by the parting words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19 and 20, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

III The Rule

The rule is the formula for the covenant. That formula is that the fruitless branches will be cut off and other branches will be grafted in as Paul explains later in Romans 11. Here he quotes from two places in Isaiah, 8:14 and 28:16, And he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare…So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed. And so we read in Romans 9:30-33, What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” In drawing together these two Old Testament quotations Paul lets us know again that the developments were predicted, but if you look at Isaiah 8:14 carefully you see that God was saying that he would be a sanctuary for the remnant and for the Gentiles, but His judgment would fall on the nation Israel. The second passage in Isaiah, 28:16 reveals the fact that the way in which God would accomplish His purpose was through the Messiah, the Christ. We know it refers to Jesus because we have a New Testament commentary by Peter in I Peter 2:5-7, You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone” You notice that Peter adds a quote from Psalm 118, “The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone” The Jews were the kingdom builders, but when the cornerstone of the kingdom, Jesus came, they rejected Him. But as John tells us in the first chapter of his gospel, verses 11 and 12, He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. The inference in Romans 9 is that what in all human probability was most unlikely to occur has actually taken place. The Gentiles, sunk in carelessness and sin, have attained God’s favor, while the Jews, to whom religion was a business, have utterly failed. Why? The reason is given in verse 32; it was because the Jews would not submit to be saved on the terms which God proposed but insisted on reaching heaven in their own way. Thus we Gentiles and Jews as well are welcome to come and be saved, but only on God’s terms, and those terms are salvation by grace alone through faith alone.