Romans 9 Handout

Quick Notes

  1. Paul expects his readers to not only know the quotations he has here, but to also know the context and the whole of the passages he is talking about because people used to know that stuff! (That’s why I’ve put together this handout).

  2. Paul writes this with a mixture of emotional anguish (his people who have rejected God) and intellectual integrity (he doesn’t shift the truth). We ought to engage these topics the same way: with empathy and emotion, because they’re emotionally important. And we ought to engage them rationally, because there is fundamental and strong truth to understand.

  3. There are several key resources to engage in:

God calls, Chooses, and Keeps (9:6-13)

Context: The Promise God Made with Abraham

In Genesis 12, God makes a Promise to Abraham:

The key reality is Abraham received a promise: Blessing and through him and through subsequent generations the world would be blessed! 

What was that blessing like? It was a lot like what’s described in Romans 8: 

  • God with you (Genesis 12:1 + Romans 8:1-5)

  • Works All Things Together for Good (Genesis 12:7; Genesis 45 + Romans 8:28-31)

  • Protection Against Charges (Genesis 12:3 + Romans 8:33-34)

  • Provision in Challenge (Genesis 12:2 + Romans 8:35-37)

  • Loved by God (Psalm 145:9 + Romans 8:39)


Stark Reality of Jesus’ Rejection by “Children of Abraham” 

Put very bluntly, Jesus was rejected by most of the descendants of Abraham. He was despised and rejected to death. While there were many jewish people in the room when Romans was first read in a church gathering, each of those jewish people had countless relatives who had flat out refused Jesus. Everyone knew that the gospel of Jesus was not loved or trusted by so many who would have been the “blessing”. What happened? They had the covenants, the adoption, the worship, the truth, and the story (9:4-5)

Does this mean God’s promise, power, or mercy is failing? Does that mean God gives up? 

If that’s true…

— We can loose it like a happy thought.

— When we falter in God’s mission, God can leave us.

— If we stop moving forward, we get left behind.

— We can doubt our way out of his mercy and mission

This question of God’s faithfulness to Israel is not an odd artifact from a random cultural dilemma 1,900 years ago, it’s of deep importance to us. Does God give up? Is God’s mercy and grace fair?

Promise Given Through Genetics? 

A dominant assumption for the people of Israel was that since they were “sons” of Abraham, genetically descended from Abraham, God would save them, protect them, and care for them—no matter what. Their DNA would ensure they received God’s blessing. God must protect, restore, and bless them, it was their genetic right and privilege. For lack of a better terms this is genetic grace or racial grace. It’s not hard to see how this concept continues to get applied in brutal ways even apart from Judaism = someone is blessed, better, or defined by their genetic composition and ancestry. This was taught by many Rabbis at the time and was rooted in the concept that because God chose Abraham.

If genetic grace was true, then even if you reject Jesus outright, you’re still saved as long as you have Abraham’s blood in your veins. If the gospel doesn’t apply to all genetic Israel, then God’s promises are broken. If God has broken his promise with Israel, how can we rely on God’s promises ourselves?

Paul dismisses genetic grace. God’s promises to Israel do not apply to everyone who descends from Abraham. Genetics don’t make someone a child of God. The children of promise are God’s children.  How do they become children of promise? The mercy of God. No one is saved or has been saved because of their bloodline, it’s always been through God’s grace. 

Example: Isaac and Ishmael. 

In verse 9, Paul quotes and summarizes a piece of Genesis 18:10,14. In a nutshell, Abraham had two children: first Ismael and then Isaac. One was born within the promise (Isaac) and one wasn’t (Ishmael) even though both were sons of Abraham. This was commonly understood and seen in Genesis 16 and 18. What made Isaac the child of promise? God’s grace and mercy.

Promises Given Through Merit or Goodness? 

Others believed, maybe God decided to choose us because we’re so good. That God could knew how we would behave, and so chose us to be his special people and be recipients of his mercy and grace. Paul says it’s not by desire, effort, or energy. It’s not by what good has been done it’s just because of grace (vs 16). 

Example: Jacob and Esau

In verses 14-12, Paul brings up Jacob and Esau as evidence not only is bloodline not what get’s you into God’s family, but neither is merit. In this story, found in Genesis 25-28, Issac and his wife Rebekah have paternal twin boys. Esau is born first. He is big, strong, hairy, and close to his father. Jacob is born second, he is small and close to his mother. 

Before they’re born, God tells Rebekah that the second child we be the child of blessing will be the second child. God chose Jacob to be the child of blessing. 

Jacob who would be renamed Israel, which means the one who contends/fights with God and who God contends/fights with. This became his name because it was true: he contended with God his whole life. This also became true of the people who came from him, Israel. They contended with God for hundreds of years. This was an improvement on his original name though: which meant deceiver. Jacob, except for a few bright moments, lived a life of sin, abuse, manipulation, and lying. Esau, who’s name mean, despiser, did the same thing. 

Was Jacob chosen for blessing and mercy because God knew he would do good and deserve it? No. God knew even before he was born what Jacob would do with his life and it wasn’t deserving. 

What did Esau do for mercy? Nothing. What did Jacob do to deserve mercy? Nothing.

Paul makes it clear. It has nothing to do with God knowing who will deserve it. 

Does God Stay With His People?

Lastly, Paul comes back to the essential question: does God give up on his people? Is there anything that can separate them from the love of God? (Romans 8:39) Is there anything that come between them or stand against them? (Romans 8:31)

Example: Israel and Edom 

Here Paul calls back to Malachi 1:2-3: “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated”

This feels quite awkward at best and cruel at worst. You might even think: “It doesn’t even sound like God!” Hint: That’s usually a sign the passage is deeper than you think and/or God is greater/deeper than you think.

Again, Paul expects us to not only know those words but the context, too. This is an artistic and powerful allusion. 

Malachi was written about a 1,800 years after Jacob and Esau died. It was written to the people of Israel who had just gone through centuries of rebellion and found themselves in exile. They kept rebelling because, “We can’t be punished because we’ve got Abraham’s blood! We’re God’s special people!” However, Babylon comes in and beats the snot out of them, takes them to another land, and puts them in constant servitude. 

The people of Israel are not humbled by this. Instead, they’re angry with God: “We would be better off if we weren’t your children! The blessing is a curse! You were never there for us!” 

God says, “I love you!” But the people respond, “When did you show you’re love to us? (Malachi 1:2) Paraphrased: we’ve been separated from your love and enemies have prevailed against us!

Then God says, “Wasn’t Esau Jacob's brother?” And yet, “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated? I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals. (Malachi 1:3). 

You won’t find this story in Genesis when Jacob and Esau were alive because it happens much later. After the people of Israel are liberated from slavery in Egypt and are finally coming back into the land they are attacked by Edom. Esau’s family had become a nation, Edom. Jacob’s family had become a nation, Israel. In this moment, God protects Jacob/Israel from Esau/Edom.

When God says, “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated.” He’s reminding them of the truth that God has been for them and not against them. He’s retelling the story of their people when God protected them.

Note: How do we know Malachi is talking about the nation of Edom and not Esau? 1, Malachi 1:4-5, continues into a prophecy against Edom. 2, The use of a patriarch’s name to talk about current nations was common for prophetic poetic license. 3, there’s nothing in the story of Esau in Genesis that demonstrate’s God was against him. In fact, Esau is quite cared for even though Esau didn’t deserve to be. 

Note: Does God hate people? The word used here is the same word Jesus uses in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” It is a comparative word: compared to the devotion, commitment, care, and priority. In Luke, Jesus is saying: I must be your purpose, love, drive, and commitment. In Malachi 1 and Romans 9, God is saying: I’m so deeply committed to Israel, I will protect them against everyone else. 

In conclusion, God protects his people no matter who their enemies are. God protects his people even when facing the consequences of their rebellion. He didn’t let go of his people. Even when they were undeserving.

God doesn’t negate his promises and never has

In his mercy, he blesses. In his grace, he chooses. And in his power, he keeps his children no matter how far they fall. 

  • God’s grace isn’t beholden to good genes (it wouldn’t be grace).

  • God’s mercy isn’t conditional on good behavior (wouldn’t be mercy).

  • God’s Saving isn’t conditional on our Safety (We wouldn’t need saving).

  • No one can earn (or needs to earn) God’s mercy…It’s God’s character to give it.

Romans 8:31-39 is true and you can rely on your adoption and all the blessing, salvation, security, and purpose that comes with it. Nothing can separate you from God’s love

Is God Unfair? (9:14-21)

This question isn’t new, it’s as old as the New Testament. Paul dives straight towards it. Is God just choosing people and siblings at random? Is he creating some people for mercy and some for grief? If he can, out of his own character extend mercy to all people, why doesn’t he? 

Paul explains 1, we need to understand God’s sovereignty, and 2, we need to understand how God responds to those he doesn’t call, and 3, we need understand the internal purpose of God’s choosing. 


Scope of God’s Sovereignty and Character 

You need to understand who you’re talking about. God will have compassion on whom he will have compassion! (vs. (Context of Moses’s desire to witness God’s glory (Exodus 33:12-20) In  quoting and calling up this passage, Paul is pointing to the full revelation of God to Moses: Pointing to the vastness of the God of Scripture. The God who tells Moses his name: I am who I am — Yahweh,

In other words: Yahweh is the only one who is 100% self sufficient, who relies on no one, needs no one, and rules and reigns over all things. Yahweh is the one everything belongs to. Yahweh is Sovereign.

  • God’s sovereignty extends over all creation

  • God’s sovereignty extends over history

  • God’s Sovereignty extends through his word

  • God’s sovereignty has purpose: Making Himself Known by Restoring the World

  • God acts for his Name’s sake

Who is God and What does he Reveal about Himself?

God, will show mercy to whom he will show mercy. That sounds good! But what about “He will harden whom he will harden?” That just doesn’t sound like God.

God’s Grace and Truth Hardens Hearts

Next Paul brings up Pharaoh and the story of Exodus when God redeems the people of Israel out of centuries of slavery to Pharaohs. In this story, Moses is sent, along with Aaron, to confront Pharaoh and ask him to let the Israelites to go into the desert to worship God for a few days. That was the great appeal and request. Pharaoh was, essentially, the king of the world. In fact, he was a god to his people and enemies. He was a cruel, genocidal tyrant.

In Exodus 9:16, God tells Pharaoh, “I put you in this position so I could show you my power and that people all over the world would know who I am and that I am the True God.” Then God, through a series of weeks hardens Pharaoh’s heart. How does he do that? God uses a relentless cycle of showing Pharaoh His power and character.

1. God revealed himself to Pharaoh so that Pharaoh knew who he was and what he cared about. God made himself know to Pharaoh

2. God called Pharaoh to obey God and to put his life under God’s rule.

3. God did miracles right in front of Pharaoh and demonstrated his uniqueness and authority over all things in Pharaoh’s kingdom.

4. God extended grace to Pharaoh through multiple attempts. God kept coming back, giving Pharaoh more opportunities to know God, to obey God, and to trust God.

5. Pharaoh refused each time. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by confronting him with truth and grace. In each refusal Pharoah got more entrenched in his opposition to God.

What was the result of this cycle? Pharaoh understood God’s power, Israel was saved, and God’s character and power was made known to the people of Israel, Egypt, and surrounding people.

How did God Reveal Himself to Pharaoh and the Nations?

Here’s a play by play of how YHWH made himself known:

God hardened Pharaoh's heart, not by a secret working but by facing him with grace. Now we’re beginning to understand Paul’s anguish. Now we understand Jesus’ tears. How does God harden people’s hearts? Is it through an arbitrary shuffle of the deck of destiny? No. It’s through the grace and it’s for the purpose of making himself known.  

Summarizing all these concepts, Paul quotes exodus: “Therefore God has mercy on whom he will have mercy, and hardens whom he wants to harden.”

Who does God show mercy? Those who don’t deserve mercy!

Who does God harden? Those who deserve to be hardened! 

Why Are We on The Hook? 

There remains the question, if God is over all things, including us, do we have any responsibility? How can we be punished if God is sovereign over us? 

Paul quotes Isaiah, “Who can talk back to this God?” Who are you, who aren’t even in control of your own life, to critique God’s plan for maximizing his purpose? If 

Does not the Potter have the right to break down and build up? 

In Jeremiah 18, the prophet is sent to a potters house to observe what he does. The potter turns a table with his hands to the clay molding and shaping. The potter says to himself, I will make a bowl and then sets out to make a bowl. If the lump of clay doesn’t turn out well, the potter begins again with the same lump fashioning it all over again. Following this observation, God tells Jeremiah, “I am the potter and you are the clay, I’m molding and shaping you!” Later he says, If Israel repents and turns back to me, I will start over and I will mold them yet again into my special purpose!” 

Three Important Things to Take Note:

  1. God is in charge of the transformation

  2. God makes beautiful things out of broken things. He rebuilds New out of the the old. The same lump of clay! In other words, God doesn’t take a lump of clay and make it something terrible and then sets it aside and uses another lump of clay to make something beautiful. No, God takes the lump and fashions it to get exactly what he wants.

  3. The potter makes some things ordinary or common and other things he crafts for very special purposes.

What is the Special Purpose? 

First, the purpose of Abraham: to be blessed and for God to bless the world through him. Next, the purpose of Israel was to display God’s power, character, and blessing to the world. Throughout history, God entrusts his uniqueness and universality to the witness of his people. 

The primary responsibility of a witness is to tell what they know! What they’ve seen. God shows his mercy to his people so they you might walk in mercy and show the world what God is like (Deuteronomy 4:5).

God, in his rich Mercy to all people, chose Abraham and Sarah to make God’s goodness known to all people—promising to use their decedents (by God’s mercy and grace to all people) to keep making the riches of his glory known.

This is what God did throughout history, this is what Jesus did choosing the twelve disciples. This is what Jesus did choosing Paul (Paul was absolutely forced to see, smell, and eat the cookie, why? For a special purpose of making Jesus known to many)

You might feel real special being called out by God, by being chosen. But you aren’t chosen for you. You’re chosen to bless the world through your obedience…You’re chosen to make the love of God known to the nations. You’re chosen for God’s purpose—To make his name known. This changes mission.

“All missional efforts to make God known must be set within the prior framework of God’s will to be known. We are seeking to accomplish what God himself wills to happen. This is both humbling and reassuring. It’s humbling inasmuch as it reminds us that all our efforts would be in vain but for God’s determination to be known. We are neither the initiators of the mission of making God known to the nations nor does it lei in our power to decide how the task will be fully accomplished or when it may be deemed to be complete. But it is also reassuring. For we know the behind all our fumbling efforts and inadequate communication stands a the supreme will of the living God, reaching out in loving self-revelation, incredibly willing to open blind eyes and reveal his glory through the treasures of the gospel delivered in the clay pots of his witnesses (2 For. 4:1-7)” — Christopher Wright.

God’s mercy and grace isn’t arbitrary! 

God isn’t cruel! God isn’t unjust! But, truly, the whole situation is unfair! 

1. We’ve done nothing and yet we’ve received everything!

2. Jesus did nothing wrong and yet assumed the cost for everything done wrong! Just so we could rest under the grace and love of God forever! 

3. Jesus weeps over those who reject his free gift. In fact, he is patiently withholding of wrath and eagerly indulgent in extending grace.

4. Jesus calls us for the sake of his mission.

Warm Cookies Analogy

—> Suppose, I have a bunch of kids in my back yard and I make some really good cookies for all the kids in the yard.

—> I go to the patio and I say to all the kids: Hey! I’ve got some fresh, warm, chocolaty goodness of a cookie! Come and get them there’s enough for everyone! 

—> The kids, deeply involved in their games, their playing in the dirt, and their conversations don’t move.

—> I Call Again, “warm cookies.” But no one comes. But I really want them to taste these cookies I’ve made just for them!

—> So I go out to one of the kids, let’s say Truman, I gently grab him by the shoulder, and put the warm cooking up to his nose, and hold the cookie right up to his mouth until he takes a bite. Finally, someone has tasted the cookie. I tell him, it’s your job to tell the others.

—> Truman goes and tells everyone else! Dad made great cookies, there’s plenty for everyone. I’ve tasted, I’ve seen. They’re incredible you have to try them. 

—> kids start streaming to the plate of cookies. Joy and sweetness fills their hearts as Truman gets to participate in telling people about the cookies.

—> Then, Truman and I both realize, there are a few kids who still haven’t come. So we both go to them. We show them the cookie, we describe the cookie. One girl says, no: "I’m too busy, I have to stop what I’m doing to eat that cookie.” Another boy says, “no: my mom makes better cookies.” Another child says: “how do I know this cookies is really good for me!?” Truman says: “It is, I know it!” “But how can I be sure!?” Eventually that boy gets so made at the constant appeals to eat the cookie he pushes and throws a fit. I decide, I won’t make them eat the cookies. 

—> At the end of the playdate, when all the kids are leaving a the few that rejected, finally see the chocolate stained faces of their friends and they see the plate of cookies. But the party is over. 

—> Was Truman special? Yes! Was he a favorite? No! I want everyone to have a cookie and I did all the work that they could have the cookie! He was used for the special privilege and burden of telling everyone about the cookies. 

—> Did any of the kids deserve a cookie? No! I could have kept them to myself especially after they all rejected it! 

—> Did the kids who ate the cookie after Truman told them about it earn the cookie? No! I chose to give each of them a cookie from the moment I bought the ingredients and began baking the cookies

—> Did all the kids get a cookie? No. Did I withhold cookies from any of the kids? No! 

—> Why did those kids reject the cookie? For the same reason everyone else did—I just decided not to force them.

Conclusion

What if God did all of this and operates within his sovereignty, with intense patience and grace? What if he did all this to make the riches of glory known to us! To all of us: Jew and Non-Jew—Regardless of pedigree, heritage, behavior, or race? What if, this entire story is unraveling to maximize our view of God’s glory…if we’re getting what Moses asked for: a glimpse of God… And what if all human history is passing us by as God says: “This is my Goodness to you! This is my mercy to you! This is my compassion to you!” What if, God has injected himself into our story to leave a mark on the entire story of humanity? That the riches of his glory might be known! 

These aren’t what if’s they’re true. That’s what God is doing.

God Uses His Sovereignty to Never Give Up On You, and your role in His Mission! 

 

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