Romans Series # 42 June 12, 2002
Title: Is God Faithful and Fair?
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Email: pastorsarver@yahoo.com
Introduction: Welcome to New Life in Christ. We are currently in Chapter 9 of Romans as we continue with message #42 of our verse-by-verse study of the Book of Romans.
Read Romans 9:1-6
Opening Prayer
Imagine a situation where a certain man is the founder and owner of a large, profitable corporation. This man has many children in his family, and he makes a general promise: “My children will always have a seat on the Board of Directors of my company and nobody but my children will have a place on the Board of Directors. “ This is his promise, this is his word. Now suppose many years after making this promise some of those who received this promise were not placed on the Board of Directors while at the same time this man went and got people living on the streets and made them his Board members. Wouldn’t it seem that this man had not kept his word? Wasn’t this man obligated to those who were expecting to be placed on the Board but were not placed on the Board? Wasn’t it unfair to place people from the streets on the Board instead of those who had grown up in his own home?
This imaginative situation is very similar to the real situation for the Israelites; a situation that raised similar questions. The Gospel Paul proclaimed made clear that many Jews would not be included in God’s promised blessings and that many Gentiles would be included. To them it seemed that, if this were true, God was being unfaithful and unfair. After all, God had promised that the descendants of Abraham would be the recipients of these blessing. In a sense, they felt that God owed them or was obligated to them. They felt like those children in our imaginative situation who had grown up in the home and yet were not placed on the Board of Directors while at the same time, the street people, i.e. the Gentiles were. Paul writes chapters 9-11 to address these concerns and to explain that God is faithful, God is fair, and that God owes no one anything. Paul’s main message in this section could be summarized very simply as:
I. God is always faithful and fair.
With that being said, let’s look at this passage verse by verse.
Read Verses 1-3
Before speaking some hard and disturbing words about Israel, Paul wants people to know that he is not doing so out animosity. He is not hateful of the nation of Israel; rather they are his “brothers, those of his own race. . .” He does not harbor ill feelings toward the Jewish people, even though many of them had persecuted him on account of the Gospel. Rather than bitterness toward them, he has “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” in his heart for them. He knows that they are lost because they’re separated from Christ and this fills him with sorrow. Even though they had attacked him, he desired to the utmost that they be saved.
This is an example to us of how we should feel toward even our enemies who are separated from Christ. Paul so cares about the Israelites that he would be willing to be “cursed and cut off from Christ for their sake. . .” He would be willing to go to hell forever if that would save them. These words are not just empty words but expressed the reality of his love. He “speaks the truth in Christ. . . (He is) not lying, (his) conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit.” The same love that compelled Jesus to leave the glories of heaven and suffer in our place is now at work in the apostle Paul so that he was willing to suffer for the Jewish people. The whole point being that Paul’s words to the Israelites are not the vindictive, even though they are hard.
Read Verses 4-5
Paul does not speak out of anger or ignorance. This is the point of these two verses. Paul knows very well that Israel is a special people. They are a people that have been treated different than any other nation by God. “Theirs is the adoption as sons.” This nation alone had a father/child relationship with God. Theirs is the Divine Glory, which means they alone received God’s special manifest presence. They alone received special revelation and promises such as the Law, the Covenants, and the temple worship. The whole Bible comes to us from God via the Jewish people. Even the Messiah (Christ) Jesus had his ancestry through them and that certainly makes them a special people since Jesus is “God over all.”
They had all these wonderful blessings, but this alone did not guarantee that they were right with God and sure of eternal blessings. They were lost despite the blessing because they squandered them. They did respond in faith to receiving such blessings and revelations but rather they became prideful and presumptive. In their pride they tried to be right with God through works and they presumed that God had guaranteed every descendant of Abraham a place at his table.
Some people, some nationalities will have more access and understanding of God’s ways than others, but that knowledge is useless unless it moves from one’s head and produces a changed heart. We in America have the advantage of growing up with an abundance of churches, Bibles, ministries, and a foundation based on Christian principles, but it will all be in vain if we do not respond. All of these blessings may just be wasted opportunities.
Having established that his teachings about Israel and the gospel are not motivated by animosity or ignorance, Paul now gets to the main concern in verses 6-9.
Read Verses 6-9
Is God unfaithful to his word? Hasn’t God failed to keep his promises? To many of the Israelites who heard Paul’s gospel the answer would have been “yes.” It did seem to them that God had not kept his word or his promises. Many people saw that most of the Jewish people were not responding in faith to Jesus and in fact were strongly opposed to the Gospel. It certainly did not look like Israel was receiving the blessing is that God had promised. If God failed to keep his word to Israel, how can Christians be sure of all promises given in Chapter 8?
Because of these concerns and questions, Paul makes it very clear in chapters 9-11 that God has not failed to keep his word. As verse 9 says, “It is not as though God’s word had failed.” Paul then goes on to explain how God had not failed. First he says, “Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel.” In other words, being a natural, physical descendant of Abraham does not automatically qualify you or make you a part of the people of God, i.e. a true Israelite. God’s promises were only given to the genuine Israelite, so his word had not failed just because the nation of Israel as a whole had not responded to the Gospel. Some people are decedents of Abraham, but are not Israel from God’s perspective.
I. God is always faithful and fair.
The promises of God had not failed but they had been misunderstood. This is a problem that still exists today. Many people claim that God did not keep his word but the usual problem is their erroneous interpretation of God’s word. That was the problem Paul was confronting. The average Jewish person was depending on physical dissent from Abraham as being sufficient to lay claim to the covenant promises, but Paul points out that this was a wrong interpretation and understanding of Scripture. Paul uses Scripture to correct a misunderstanding of Scripture in verse 7.
Abraham had many children other than Isaac, whom he had through his wife Sarah. He had children by another wife, by his slave girl Hagar, and by concubines, (Genesis 25:1-6) yet none of these descendants of Abraham counted concerning God’s promises. The Scripture says, “it is only through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned (counted.)” This showed that just being a physical descendant of Abraham was not enough. The only people regarded as children of Abraham are those who are the “children of promise.” (vs. 8) This means those who are born supernaturally as a result of God’s power, as Isaac was born to Sarah supernaturally in her old age. (vs. 9) This is true today, as the only ones who are truly God’s children and recipients of his promises are those are born supernaturally. This means Christians whether they are of Gentile or Jewish descent.
The main point is that God’s word does not fail though people fail to understand his word. God is faithful to his word.
Read Verses 10-13
The Israelites not only felt that God was obligated to bless them because of their decent from Abraham but also because of their works. The Jewish people felt that God was obligated to bless them because of their obedience to the law, which meant that they were deserving of blessings. They were depending on man’s effort to earn God’s blessings but Paul points out that it depends on God’s mercy and not man’s efforts. At the same time many Jews were upset that the Gospel was being taken to the Gentiles. They considered the Gentiles like the street people in the fictional story I told the beginning of this message. What right did they have to God’s blessings? They didn’t deserve God’s blessings. They didn’t have or keep the Law. Paul once again uses Scripture to point out their error.
In verses 10-13 Paul points out that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau even though both of them were descendants of Isaac and that he did this “before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad.” In other words, the choice to bless Jacob and his descendants was not based on behavior or works. God’s blessings are always based on His mercy which he can give to anybody, including Gentiles.
The Jewish people cannot claim that God owed them a blessing because God’s blessings are not based on works! God’s blessings are not based on merit, but on mercy! No one can lay a claim against God for he owes us nothing. In verse 14 it says, “Jacob I loved but Esau I hate it.” This in essence means that one was chosen and the other not. The word “hate” here does not refer to a attitude of ill-will toward Esau, which would go against the scriptural truth that God loves everybody (John 3:16). The choice involving Jacob and Esau did not refer to eternal salvation, but to national destiny and blessings. Esau was not rejected prior to his birth for salvation but he was rejected as the one through the Abrahamic covenant would be passed on.
Read Verses 14-18
Was God being unfair in blessing one person or nation and not the other? Was God being unfair in blessing the Gentiles with the Gospel while hardening the hearts of Israel against the Gospel? As verse 14 says, “Is God unjust?” The answer is “not at all!” The Scriptures themselves say that God can show mercy to anyone he chooses and that no one is owed blessings. No one has the right to complain that they did not receive enough mercy or that another person received too much mercy. If I in my kindness decide to give $1,000 away to total strangers, no one can complain because I give some people $20 while giving other people $200.00. Why not? Because no one was owed anything, everything they got was an undeserved gift. God shows mercy to all people (Romans 11:32) but he does so when and how he chooses. God’s choice of who he will bless, whether Israelites or Gentiles, “does not depend on man’s desire or effort (works) but on God’s mercy.” (vs. 16)
I. God is always faithful and fair.
God has the right to show mercy to any one he chooses, including Gentiles, and he has the right to harden the heart anyone he chooses, such as Israel. To prove this point Paul uses the example from Scripture of Pharaoh. In verse 17 we learn that God purposely placed Pharaoh in a high position with the intent of using his stubborn rebellious heart to display God’s character (name) and his power.
If God could harden Pharaoh’s heart for this purpose after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart didn’t he have a right to do the same with the nation of Israel who had hardened their own hearts (Romans 10:21)? Just like God had the right to raise Pharaoh up for his purposes, he also had the right to bring him down. In the same way God had raised up the Israelites for his purposes and had showed them great mercy in doing so, but he also had the right to harden their hearts and use them for another purpose.
Conclusion: There many important lessons we have learned from this text of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel, but the two primary lessons are as follows. First, God is faithful to his word. Second, God is fair in his dealing with all people.
I. God is always faithful and fair.
Closing Prayer
