Romans 11

Read Romans 11

Paul asks a great question in the first verse of this chapter. Has God rejected his people, the Jews? Of course not. Paul himself if proof of that.
Paul looks through history and shows how in the past God's prophets, his chosen at the time, were killed, and yet God had set aside some for himself. Paul uses this as an example for now. Many of his fellow Jews are perishing, dead in their sin, and it's Paul's desire for them to be saved (see beginning of Romans 9 and 10). Those who are chosen have been chosen by grace. And if they were chosen by grace then they weren't chosen by their works, or grace wouldn't be grace.

So because righteousness and salvation can not be obtained by works, Israel had failed to obtain it at all. Instead a select few had obtained it, as commissioned by God. But why? We see the answer in verses 11-12.

God did not set up Israel so that it may fail. Instead, despite his knowledge that they would fail, he used their failure to bless the world. It is because of the failure of Israel that Jesus needed to come. And by Jesus coming not just the Jews could be saved, but now the Gentiles can be saved as well. And since the Jews brought about a way for which Gentiles can be saved, and therefore the whole world, then how much more would they be able to be saved as well!

So what we see here is that God selected a group of people to bless the world. He, being sovereign and all knowing, knew they would fail because humans cannot save themselves or anyone else. Their failure then brought us Jesus, the true blessing, he true path to righteousness and salvation. With Jesus being the salvation, again Gentiles are grafted into the promise.

With Paul being the Jew of Jews and having compassion and zeal for his people, but also being the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul writes this: That he uses his apostleship for the Gentiles in an effort to make the Jews jealous so they they may be saved. Their rejection of Jesus means a reconciliation for the world to God, so what would their acceptance mean? Paul writes that it would mean life from the dead. But not for all, only them. Each gains eternal life through Jesus personally, not as a whole. But by one being given eternal life by God, they open the way to share the gift given to them to those around them. Thus: If the dough is holy, so is the whole lump because the blessedness spreads. That's just what I think though. Like in all posts, these are my thoughts.

Then in verses 17ff we get a look into the idea of salvation. God had used the Jews to fail so that Jesus could come. Jesus is the root, the vine. The branches then that did no produce fruit were cut off, and others were grafted in. The Jews, who were not wanting to be connected to the root, and did not produce fruit, were cut off, and Gentiles were grafted in so that they may receive salvation as well. This, Paul writes in verse 22, shows the kindness and also the severity of God. Those who don't believe are cut off, and those that do remain.

Paul then gives the Gentiles some Jewish lessons. He doesn't want the Gentiles to become prideful because they received salvation because of Israel's failure. It is by the Gentiles coming into the promise that Israel may be saved. This shows even more that God had Israel fail so that the Gentiles may come in, which will also help lead Israel come in. This leads to god banishing ungodliness from Jacob, or Israel. This leads us to the idea of the New Israel, the perfect Israel, God's true Israel. Instead of being elected just because of their ancestry, those who are saved are now Jews by heart (think circumcision of the heart). Israel then still exists, because the gifts that God gives, and the calling he gives cannot be revoked. What I take this as is that God will not stop calling for us to join him. And as how I view Romans 8, all are called. Paul continually hits the point here that Israel's failure is for the purpose of salvation for all. This is supported by verse 32. God has given us all up to disobedience so that he can have mercy on us all as well. What I think Paul is saying here is that back in the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, God could have started all over. Instead, he allowed them to live, allowing sin to run rampant, so that he may have mercy on all of us. God great is God then, for wanting so bad to show us mercy that he allowed sin to continue despite the pain it brings us, his beloved children, and also himself.

How great and sacrificial is  our God?

Romans 10

Read Romans 10

So Romans 10 begins by concluding Romans 9. Paul again shows his great desire for all Jews, his kin, to come to faith. And he writes, we can assume given the message, to the Jews in Rome saying, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."  What Paul is saying here, is that the Law will not bring you righteousness (either faith in the Law or performing the Law depending who you ask), but Christ will. He is the end of righteousness through the Law and the beginning of righteousness through faith, which is the main point of Romans 10.

Before Jesus the mentality was that Moses gave the Law, and through the Law one could be made righteous, and therefore be saved. Jesus then came on the scene and said that through faith in him can you be righteous, and therefore saved. This righteousness says that the word has come near to us. If we think in terms of John 1, the Word, the Logos, Jesus, has come near to us, and we have faith in him that we proclaim. And because we confess him as our Lord, King, Savior, Messiah, Christ; and because we proclaim his resurrection and defeat of death, we are saved. Paul writes that with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. What I see these things mean is this.

I trust my girlfriend with all I got. I love her and love brings risk, the risk of being hurt. I can't make a logical decision about this, I can't think about it, weigh the options, look at facts and statistics because human nature is too spontaneous and unpredictable for facts and statistics to be of use, which is why I don't believe in evolution, but that's for another time. So If I trust my girlfriend it must be a trust from the heart, I believe with/through my heart that she will not hurt me. I cast my chips with her, and I hope she plays wisely with them so that I don't lose. We do the same with Christ, we give him our chips and say, "I trust you. There's no previous game between us for me to go off of, so I'm going with my gut feeling, my heart, and trusting in you." Through that we become justified, he gives us a return for our chips, and that is his righteousness (as seen in the beginning of 8). Then we confess with our mouth, meaning we thought about it then. We have tested this, it proved true, so we stand before others and confess all about Jesus and ourselves, telling what wretches we are and how perfect he is, and through this confession we are saved. Just as if we stood before a jury and confessed that we are guilty of a crime and because of the judge's mercy, we are then given a pardon, despite our guilt, because we were willing to confess our sin before him.

Because of this salvation, this justification, we come into one big family, one body, one Church, and there is no distinction between race, nationality, culture, or social status, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. Because the God that saved is us God of all and gives each and every one of us the same riches that he gives to all who call upon his name.

But how can someone call on a person they don't believe in? And how can they believe in him if they never heard of him? And how can they never hear of him if we never proclaim him? And how are we to proclaim him if we are never sent? Faith in Jesus comes through hearing about Jesus, and hearing about Jesus comes through the word of Jesus.  So let's sort this out.

Let's say I had a grandfather who was alive while I was a child. But I never heard about him, from him, or saw him. So how could I ever call him? I don't even know that he exists, and sure don't believe that he does. And how can I believe that he exists if my parents never talk about him, or proclaim him? And how can they ever talk about him if they never knew him, or were sent into the world by him? In the same way, how will anyone believe in Jesus if we never proclaim him? Now some of you who try to weasel their way out of telling others about Christ because you think your only duty is to sit in a pew on Sunday will probably be saying, "Well it's not my job to tell others about Christ." What about in Ephesians 4.11ff Paul writes that God gave many different types of people to equip the saints (all those saved) for ministry (service and proclaiming Jesus) and building of the Body (evangelism). Lazy Christians...irk me. Anyways, We see throughout scripture that we all are to proclaim Jesus so that all may hear and have a chance for salvation. And this salvation comes through faith, which can only come through hearing.

Paul is still writing about Jews at the moment though, and he says that God had stretched out his hand to the Jews who have been disobedient the entire time, and finally God was found by those who didn't seek him because he had shown himself to them even though they didn't ask him to.

This reaffirms that God is a God who chases after man. One of the big problems with reading the Bible a lot is that when you do, you get a lot of stuff out of it, but forget where you read what even though you made notes about it. I know that recently I've read a lot about God chases after man, but currently I can't remember where it's at. But the main point is this of chapter 10. God is chasing after all of us. He has extended his hand and many turned away, but he still extends it despite that. He makes it easy for salvation, by making it through faith in his son. By casting our lot with Jesus we are given justification in return, trusting that he'll take care of us. Because of this awesome and simple salvation we should tell others about it, just as when you get an awesome Christmas gift and want to brag to others about it.

Romans 9 Continued

So again it's been a while since I posted. Between holidays and class time got a bit short, but I'm back now.

Today we're looking at the rest of Romans 9, so go ahead and read verses 14-33 and hopefully we'll get through all of it.

Verse 14 has Paul asking the question if God is unjust because he chose one brother over the other. Well of course not God is always just, and we see from history that while he chose one brother to use to bring about the Messiah, he also blessed the other brother. Think about Moses and Aaron, God called one, and also used the other. God doesn't just hate on a brother for no reason, but if we look through some of the Minor Prophets we can see reasons why God would be displeased with the nation of Esau. Look at the first two chapters of Amos, God was probably more angry with Israel than he was Edom (the nation derived from Esau). So is God unjust for "hating Esau?" No. God is always just and he doesn't have to cheat to be so (that is if he broke the rules and was still just). Instead God is always just even if we don't see how. This idea that God is not unjust is reinforced by Paul writing that God himself states that he will have mercy and compassion on those he wants to. Not so it is dependent on man, but on God.

One can argue that God's mercy is just another term for his grace, and their argument would be valid. And we see in Titus 2.11 that God's grace has appeared and brought salvation to (or for) all. So we see here that God will have mercy and compassion on who he wants, and he wants to have mercy on everyone else he wouldn't have had his grace appear to all. And this is because of his great love, and not because we deserve it.

To understand verses 17-21 we have to look forward to verses 22-23 first which says, "What if God, desiring to show is wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known  the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared before hand for glory..." The key here are the first two words. "What if." So what if God does this? will it take away from his justice? No because we can't fully understand because we're stupid. So God raised up Pharaoh, hardened his heart so that his glory could be seen, and God showed mercy to Israel because he desired to, yet hardened who he willed. If that's the case how can God fault us with sin if he hardens us himself? Well looking at the story of Moses and the Exodus we see a few times that Pharaoh himself hardened his own heart, and other times for God to show his glory he hardened his heart for him. At the end of Pharaoh's life (from the English because I can't read Hebrew) he was the one that decided to go after Israel. But either way, so what if God did this? Who are we to question him? Though we should be in open communication with him over, honestly, everything.

One final thing I want to look at today, the final 4 verses. Right here is the point of the chapter if we're looking at the context of the entire thing. Israel tried to obtain righteousness through faith in the Law, which they failed. The Word itself came down and now they stumble over it. And now the Gentiles have acquired what the Jews have always wanted, but by faith in the cross. All of this is to make the Jews jealous, so that they too might acquire a righteousness by faith in Jesus.