A Verse-by-Verse Study of Romans 9
From the 1888 Message Perspective
The theme of Romans 9 is God’s everlasting covenant. God promised Christ as the Guarantor of His covenant and He elected the whole human race to be saved. Strict Calvinism teaches that God elected a special few to be saved. Islam, too, has its version of Allah’s sovereignty of election. Arminian Protestantism says, God has offered salvation to everyone if they do something right first and believe. Paul taught the Truth of the Gospel: God has already given the election of salvation to everyone.
Paul’s God-ordained ministry of the gospel is a demonstration of its practicality. “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (verses 1-3). In other words, Paul would give up his salvation for his fellow Jews who have missed their Messiah. God’s love revealed in Christ’s submission to the Cross compels Paul to bear the curse of his brethren in the final judgment so that they may never have to suffer such self-condemnation.
Those for whom Paul is willing to make the sacrifice “are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen” (verses 4, 5). And yet, for all these sacred privileges which should have led them to Christ, their blindness led them to crucify Him.
The privileges of the Jews consisted of: (1) “adoption” as children into the household of God; (2) “the glory” which pertained to the priesthood and Temple; (3) “the covenants” of their election to salvation; (4) “the law” which was ordained for life; (5) “the service of God” as missionaries to the world; (6) “the promises” of God; (7) “the fathers” as a heritage of patriarchal example; and culminating with, (8) Christ who came as one of them in “the flesh.” These were the unmistakable privileges of being a Jew, which to a great extent were missed.
But God’s Word never returns to Him void, because it is “not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel” (verse 6). If Paul’s ethnic brethren won’t take the good news to the world, God has other plans that are already contained in His covenant promise.
Not all Abraham’s children are the promised seed. “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (verse 7). In other words, Ishmael was not the promised seed. He was born after the flesh, i.e., through unbelief. Likewise, “They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed” (verse 8). Fancy Paul designating the Jews as children of Ishmael because of unbelief in Christ!