My commentary of Romans 9-11

Calvinists seem to think that non-Calvinists are afraid of Romans chapter 9. I am not a Calvinist (at least I don't think I am ), Romans 9-11 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. For proper understanding you must at least read Romans chapters 9-11 as a unit. This will help you understand the context of what is actually being addressed here. Here is my brief commentary on Romans chapters 9-11...

 

Paul realizes that the people of Israel (as God's peculiar people) as a nation at large are rejecting their Saviour. God gave them special attention with the law, the prophets, and divine promises, yet they reject Him. He even gave them their Saviour through their own blood, yet they still reject Him. Paul's heart is to represent this backward nation at large and be accursed from God if it meant that his brethren could be saved.

Not everyone claiming to be Jews were pure Jews. The Samaritans were half-Jews. The Ishmaelites came from Abraham, but were not of the covenant, because the covenant was through Isaac.

This is a leading preview: God's new covenant--spiritual children of Abraham!

A reminder of God's original promised fulfilled through Abraham.

God even kept His covenant promise in the least expected way. The tradition was that the firstborn received the inheritance. Esau was born first, yet God preordained that the nation of Israel would be established through the younger--Jacob--who would later be renamed Israel. Even before they were born and did any good or evil (Jacob's evil in bribing the birthright, lying and stealing the blessing), God chose to use Jacob's faults to achieve His purpose rather than the more expected choice of Esau. Jacob was the cunning, lying, deceiver, not Esau, yet God chose Jacob. Why? So that His purpose through election might stand. There was definitely nothing good in Jacob himself that would make God choose him instead of the firstborn to derive the nation of Israel.

Again. It is written for all to see! God chose Jacob, not the firstborn Esau to be your father. Remember, children of Israel, you only exist today because of God's Sovereign election.

More history for the nation of Israel. God sovereignly set everything up so that He would create His nation as He promised. Even though they were slaves to Egypt for 400 years, it was all part of God's plan! God used Pharaoh, the most powerful ruler in the known world at the time, to declare His power throughout the world by miraculously delivering Israel from Pharaoh's hand, and He personally made His will known to both Moses and Pharaoh--two sides to this coin in God's sovereign plan.

Even though you can see from history that you are indeed God's chosen people, that doesn't mean you are faultless and sinless. You are still responsible to obey Him. He finds fault with you because you have disobeyed His law! You have resisted His will by not keeping His law! Remember God's foretelling of judgment in the writings of Jeremiah and how it came to pass because you refused to turn back to Him.

You can't blame God for your sin! He made you a human and He made you a Jew, but you are the sinner.

These are rhetorical questions showing exactly what happened. God made both Jews and Gentiles from the same lump of clay. God was willing to show His wrath on the disobedient Jews and endured with longsuffering "the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" (the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonias, etc.), using them to punish the rebelling nation, all to serve His ultimate purpose in establish the nation of Israel ("the vessels of mercy") for His glory.

Through your stumbling, God is now revealing His new covenant.

Even in the Scriptures that God has given you, you were told that God would establish a new covenant. He would accept people from all over the world for His promises, not just the Jews. In fact, not even all of the Jews are in this new covenant. Nevertheless, God has still kept and will keep His old national covenant with Israel. There will never be a time when Israel could be wiped off the face of the earth. There will always be a nation of Israel and they will always have His national promise.

In God's new covenant, both Gentiles and Jews are in. Even though God gave His law of righteousness to the Jews, it seems that more Gentiles than Jews are becoming part of this new covenant. This new covenant is a covenant of individual faith--not of a national law.

God sovereignly declared this to be so. The nation of Israel at large through their asfixiation to their man-made traditions of their law because the stumblingblock that God used to graft in the Gentiles to this new covenant of faith, that was in fact foretold in the Jewish Scriptures.

 

Paul is reiterating his heart's desires for his own people. He wishes that they would understand that the whole point of God's old covenant was to bring about the new covenant of individual faith, and their national pride is hindering them.

Christ fulfilled the law and set its true standard of faith. If you think you have to obtain God's favor through the law, you are bound by the law!

Salvation is individual and it is only by faith in what Christ has done. Only He fulfilled the law and conquered sin and death. You cannot do that. You can only trust in Christ.

The new covenant is once again an individual covenant of faith available to the people of all nations. It is not a covenant to everyone born of the blood of one nation. Remember that "they are not all Israel that are of Israel." How do you know for sure that you are 100% Israelite? If salvation were by blood, how do you know that you are full Israelite? Think about it.

Because of this new covenant of faith, I see the need and responsibility for preachers to proclaim this good news throughout the world. The good news is for individuals from every nation. Not all individuals from one nation. Not all Israelites obeyed this gospel and believed in their Messiah as was foretold in Isaiah.

The Jews had and have heard this gospel but have largely rejected it. And because of their rejection of God they continue to be punished, even though they are a covenant nation. They will even become jealous because they see God blessing Gentile nations because the Gentiles believe this gospel. This again was foretold in your own Scriptures!

 

Even though God has a new covenant of faith (that was foretold in the Scriptures) does not mean He has abandoned His own promised to establish the nation of Israel. I am an Israelite, attesting to the fact that God has and will always keep His promise to preserve the nation of Israel. God has not cast away His nation that He Himself chose before Abraham ever existed. If you just look at the history of Israel from Abraham all the way up to this present day, you will see that God has indeed kept His original covenant. He still will keep it, so don't worry, the nation of Israel will not die off because the Gentiles are being blessed, even though Israel is still under Roman captivity. God always keeps His promises!

The new covenant is by grace, not the law. These cannot essentially be reconciled. It's either one or the other, yet it is indeed by grace, so it is not by the law. Just as God has chosen you to be the people of Israel, so has God chosen people of all nations by His grace to be part of this new covenant of faith. Your Scriptures again foretold that this would happen.

God did not let Israel fall to destroy them. God will keep His promises! He allowed their fall to be the means through which His gospel would be spread, and Israel would become jealous because they will see what God really wanted from them all along. In fact, God is using the fall of Israel to bring about the salvation of Gentiles, to provoke them to come back to Him!

I want you Gentiles to know that I want my own people to be like you--believers in Christ. They were the tools God used to bring you to salvation; now you can be the tools to in turn bring them to salvation.

Remember, Gentiles, that in a sense, you are only grafted into the plan of salvation because of the fall of Israel. Remember that this is a covenant of faith. Do not get the same pride that caused the Jews to stumble: it is not your works or your blood that saves you, it is God's grace alone.

Since the Jews are the root of this olive tree of God's covenant, it is only natural that He can graft them back in again. This should be a lesson to you. You Gentiles are the unnatural branches; you are in because Israel fell. Do not become highminded or proud--you have no reason--or God will cause you as nations likewise to fall from his covenant.

Israel as a nation shall continue to be blind to the gospel until the gospel is spread throughout the world. After this, God will then reveal to all of Israel their Messiah and they will believe. Therefore, Gentiles, this should humble you!

The Jews may be your enemies and they may persecute you, yet they are still God's chosen nation and God will always keep His promises to them despite this.

God allowed the fall of one nation to be the blessing upon all nations, and you Gentiles will be God's tools to win back His people Israel. Amen!

I have read this passage many times through and I love every word of it! It is so full of God's promises, His covenants, and His grace. Please let me know if I have exegeted or eisegeted it correctly, and please think through this passage carefully.

 

The word election simply means "choice". It may refer to those elect unto salvation under the new covenant or it may refer to those elect under the old covenant--God's chosen elect people Israel. As always, context! Just because we have termed a doctrine election doesn't mean that the same word as used in the Bible always references the same thing. Just like the word saved. We call a doctrine salvation but that doesn't mean every use of the word has to do with eternality. Just as in English.

 

I guess I see that I misinterpreted verse 8. It's really the same idea as in verse 7. The "flesh" here is probably referring to all children of Abraham (i.e. through Hagar also), but "the children of the promise" are the children through Isaac (as in verse 7). Verse 8 is saying that it's not just because someone was born of the flesh through Abraham that he was God's chosen nation, but that he came through Isaac.