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.