Romans
Chapter 9 Verse 1 – 5
Paul says that he is saying the truth and the Holy Spirit (Ghost) sees this is true—-that Paul feels very sad for his Jewish brothers and sisters. He said he would be willing to be cut off from God —if that would make the Jewish people be believers in Christ.
The Jewish people are God’s chosen people. They were given the law and commandments, and God’s promises. They knew the true God in heaven. God used Jewish men to be prophets to tell the future of what God would do. Jesus came through a Jewish family.
Romans Chapter 9 Verse 6 – 9
Not everyone born into a Jewish family is truly a Jew. Being a true Jew is the way you believe. A true Jew would believe in the one true God and would obey God’s laws. If a person born into a Jewish family makes a choice not to believe in God or obey His laws—then he is not a true Jew.
Genesis 21:12 God said, “In Isaac will your seed be called”.
Abraham had other sons. Ishmael was Abraham’s first son that he had with Sarah’s servant. Sarah was trying to “help” God by giving her servant to Abraham to have a child with. That was not God’s idea. That was not the “promised son”. God promised Abraham a son—-that meant that Abraham’s wife and he were going to have a son. That son would be the one God would give them—a miracle baby because Sarah had not been able to have a baby—and both of them were now too old to have a baby.
After Sarah died, Abraham married again. Abraham had several sons with this second wife. These sons were not the “promised son”. Only Isaac was the promised son. God said through Isaac will I bless the nations of the world, and through Isaac you will have a large family.
The people who were born through Isaac’s children and grandchildren were the people of promise. They were the people who were called “the children of Abraham” and “the children of promise”.
God had said to Abraham, “Next year at this time Sarah will have a son.”
Romans Chapter 9 Verse 10 – 18
When Isaac got married to Rebekah—they had twins. Before the twins were born—-God told Rebekah that the older son would be a servant to the younger son. This proves that God decides things as to His plan, not by our works good or bad. The twins had not been born yet. The boys had not yet had time to be good or bad. But God had already had decided who would be the chosen leader. Genesis 25:23
Verse 13 “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have rejected (not chosen).” In the King James version, it says, “Esau I have hated”. God did not hate Esau as we might say we hate someone. Remember the Bible was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. Men have read these languages and written in words in English. Some words in Hebrew can not be exactly changed to an English word. The word “hated” in English does not have the exact same meaning as the Hebrew word used. “Rejected (not chosen)” is probably a better word.
Verse 14 Is God being unfair? Is God being unrighteous?
No. God told Moses —God was talking about Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose” Exodus 33:19
It is not by our will that God’s blessings come to us. We cannot get God’s promise by working for it. God will show mercy to anyone He chooses.
God told Pharaoh, “I have chosen you so I can show my power and so My Name will be known through the earth.” Exodus 9: 16
Verse 18 God choose some people just because He wants to. God chooses that some people will make their heart hard toward Him.
This verse 18 is hard to understand that God chooses to have some people make their hearts hard toward Him. That does not make sense to us.
It does not seem right. I do not know what to say to explain it. What Paul writes here is a simple sentence and does not seem to have any hidden meaning. God is God —He can do as He chooses.
Romans Chapter 9 Verse 19
So you may say, “How can God blame people for not listening to Him or obeying?” “They have done what God made them do.”
We should not say that, because we should not criticize God. We can not be His judge. We have been created by God. Should we the “created” say to the Maker, “Why have you made me like this?”
The potter, a person, who makes jars out of clay,— has the right to decide if he will use that handful of clay for a fancy jar used in honor, or if he will make a common pot to use for garbage or to put dirty things in.
God is the maker and He decides to make some people to show His glory—by blessings of mercy or He makes some people so He can show His power by showing His anger and judgment.
God also has the right to decide to be very patient and wait long for those who will see His anger and judgment.
God has the right to give His riches of glory to those who He has made ready to receive His mercy. God has chosen us from both the Jews and Gentiles.
In the book of Hosea Chapter 2 :23 God said, “ Those who were not my people, I will now call my people. And I will love those whom I did not love before. Once they were told, ‘You are not my people.’ But now I will say ‘You are the children of the Living God.’ ”
In Isaiah 10:22, and Isaiah 1: 9 the prophet said, “Though the people of Israel are as many as the sand on the seashore, only a small number will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his judgment upon the earth quickly and it will be final.” “If the Lord Almighty had not saved a few of us, we would have been destroyed as Sodom and Gomorrah.”
What can we say? The Gentiles have been made right with God by faith. The Gentiles were not seeking the true God. They had their own idols. They were not “God’s people”—but through faith they are now God’s people.
The Jews were trying keep the law and trying to be good enough—but they could not succeed—they kept failing. They were “working” by their own strength to try to please God—-they could not.
They needed to depend —not on their works—but on faith to be right with God.
The Jews “stumbled” (when you are walking and your foot hits something and you almost fall)—over having faith to be right with God.
They stumbled over having faith in Jesus Christ as God’s Son.
Isaiah 8: 14 —-Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet spoke for God, “I am putting a stone in Jerusalem that makes people stumble, and a rock that makes them fall. But anyone who believes in him will not be disappointed.”
Hundreds of years before Jesus came to be born a baby—God said that He would send someone who would be a rock to make the Jews stumble over. But if they would believe in Him they would not be disappointed.
The Jews did stumble over believing in Jesus. The Jews that believed in Jesus had trouble forgetting about trying to keep the law and live by faith.
Jesus and faith in Him was a “stumbling stone” for the Jews. Still today—most Jews do not accept Jesus as God’s Son.