Romans 9: part 2

14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”^[f] 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”^[g] 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As He says also in Hosea:

“ I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”^[h]
26 “ And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘ You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”^[i]

27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:^[j]

“ Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
The remnant will be saved.
28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
Because the LORD will make a short work upon the earth.”^[k]

29 And as Isaiah said before:

“ Unless the LORD of Sabaoth^[l]had left us a seed,
We would have become like Sodom,
And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”^[m]

I was reading a note on these verses, and was surprised to find something I had never thought of before.  The vessels of mercy are the believing Jews and Gentiles, and the vessels of wrath are the unbelieving Jews.  Now that I think about it, that makes a whole lot more sense than thinking that each individual person is elected to go to heaven or hell (vessels of mercy and wrath respectively).

30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness.^[n] 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law.^[o] For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:

“ Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”^[p]

“The first answer to the paradox of Jewish unbelief is from God’s standpoint: His sovereign will. The second answer to the paradox is from humanity’s standpoint: faith. For “the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith”, equally for Jews and Gentiles. The Gentiles, who had been unconcerned about righteousness, now attain it by their faith in Christ. God mercifully overlooks their former unrighteousness practiced in ignorance. By contrast the Jews fail to attain even the righteousness of the law, for they do not pursue the law by faith but by works. Seeing only the letter of the law, not its spirit, they miss Christ in the law and try to keep the commandments apart from Him. They substitute what was “shadow” for substance. Jesus Christ becomes their stumbling block.”

Romans 9

So I haven’t been real good with keeping up on this every day.

1 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, 2 that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my countrymen^[a] according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
6 But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel, 7 nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”^[b] 8 That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed. 9 For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”^[c]
10 And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac 11 (for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls), 12 it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.”^[d] 13 As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”^[e]

I used to champion Romans 9 as a bastion of predestination.  But here are the Orthodox Study Bible notes.

The paradox of Jewish unbelief is understood in part by Paul’s description of a twofold Israel: one spiritual, the other physical. God is faithful to all Israel, but the issue is, who is a true child of Abraham?
(1) Not a natural or biological offspring of Abraham, for if this were the case the children of Hagar and of Keturah would be Israelites. Further, not all those in Isaac’s line  are Israelites (otherwise Esau and the Edomites would be) but those who are “in Isaac” – in other words, faithful believers.  Being a child of God has never been based on race, or family.
(2) Children of the promise – that is, those in Isaac, or faithful believers – are the true children of Abraham. For Isaac was conceived by the word of promise, not just by the natural procreative powers of his elderly parents.

It was being argued that since Ishmael was the son of a slave woman, whereas Sarah was free, Isaac was the seed and Ishmael was not. However, the fact that Rebecca was free and the mother of both Jacob and Esau proves the argument wrong. for if being God’s children is based on the flesh, then Esau must also be counted in the inheritance. Jacob is the seed, not because of his human parentage, but because he is the child of promise.
Both Jacob and Esau were called to salvation, for God loves all equally. But God foreknew how these two would freely respond to His call: Esau was hated, or rejected, only because God knew he would choose wrongly and be wicked. Jacob was loved and chosen because God knew he would participate in the faith of Abraham and serve God’s purposes. Similarly, though at one time Paul persecuted Christians, God foreknew he would repent and had elected him before he was born. God knows the end even before the beginning.

Generally speaking, I’ve kinda come to see predestination in a more corporate manner, like God predestining the Church for salvation, rather than any kind of individualized attention.  Of course, I believe in the foreknowledge of God, but I’m not a determinist…. and I am soooooo NOT a Calvinist.