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Romans 9 - Gods Right To Choose
Romans 9 - Gods Right To Choose
As we begin chapter 9-11 we enter the last section of Paul’s instruction concerning the salvation that is available in Christ through the gospel. Several things that we have learned need to be kept in mind The gospel is God’s power to save EVERYONE that believes. Those that SIN will be lost. God’s judgment is without partiality. God’s judgment is based upon truth. God’s judgment is about how people have responded unto God and righteousness. These things don’t get thrown away as we turn the page from chapter 8.
Chapter 9 shows that God has indeed made some kind of a choice about people. We often hear that Israel is / was God’s ‘chosen people’, but the question is chosen FOR what? There have been basically three answers given to this choosing in chapter 9. 1) This is about God choosing individuals to be saved. Such choice was said to be from the beginning of the world before mankind was even created. Such choice is unto salvation and is completely apart from anything that the individual does. 2) This choosing is corporate - God chose not the individual but the ‘body of people’. This was Israel in the OT and the church in the NT. Hence the body of people was chosen but the individual could be saved or lost depending upon his taking part in this people. 3) God’s choosing here in chapter 9 is not about salvation but about service.
Number one is based upon determinism and is used to ‘prove’ that God has predetermined the events of the world. That includes having predetermined who would be saved and who would be lost and THAT choice is said to not to take into consideration any thing that they might have done. Such simply ignores the points we have seen in chapter 1 - 8. (see end of article for a list of such universal and inclusive statements in Romans).
There is a truth to option 2, for God did predetermine to have a people that were to be in the image of His son (cp. the end of Romans 8). This people today is the church as a body of people. Individuals can reject the gospel and refuse to obey and to become part of God’s people. Others are moved by the message and become part of God’s people by obeying the gospel. The choosing in chapter 9 is seen as the choosing of the sphere of relationship and not the individual.
I think Paul is speaking of the third option. God has chosen to use people to accomplish His purposes. He chose Israel in the flesh to bring about the coming of Jesus and the whole of the gospel scenario. God made a choice between Jacob and Esau - not about their salvation but about who would be the one through whom the promise would come. God made of choice to use Moses to deliver His people from Egypt. God also chose Pharaoh - but not for salvation! He chose to use Pharaoh to ‘show his power in him, that God’s name would be proclaimed in all the earth” (vs. 17). As a potter has the right to take the clay and use it for his purpose, so God has the right to use people to accomplish His purposes. So He used Israel.
My understanding is that these choices were about whom God would use to accomplish His purpose of saving people through the Christ. When Paul does speak of salvation he talks about those of Israel that rejected God’s call. God didn’t predetermine that Israel is lost (obviously SOME of Israel were saved). Yet, many of fleshly Israel rejected the message of the gospel. For this reason only a ‘remnant will be saved’ (vs. 27). Those of Israel that are cut off are cut off NOT because God predetermined it, but because THEY did not pursue it by faith. Those of the gentiles that were saved were saved NOT because God predetermined the individual salvation but because they attained by faith - they believed the gospel message of Rom. 1:16.
Is it ‘fair’, that God used Israel all these many years and then opens the door to the gentiles? Many of the Jewish people simply lost sight that they were chosen to be the instrument that God used to bring about the fulfillment of the promise that in Abraham’s seed all nations would be blessed. God indeed has the right to choose how He accomplishes His purpose and whom He uses to bring such about. God has chosen to bless both Jew and Greek that come in faith through Jesus. The gospel message of salvation is to be preached unto every creature, he that believes and is baptized shall be saved. He that believes not shall be condemned (Mark 16:16). There is no other way of salvation (Acts 4:12). There is no way unto the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). You can choose to be saved IN Christ, but you cannot choose to be saved APART from Jesus. Choose Jesus.
Hugh DeLong
