Notes on Romans 9

Just been going through the sobering passage of Romans 9.

Vessels

"What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory"

I think Paul is saying that Israel were the vessels of wrath, prepared for destruction.

God was patient in holding back on punishing Israel until the Messiah came (3:25)

He then 'destroyed' Israel by casting them off when they rejected the Messiah

This was "in order" that "vessels of mercy" would be glorified. As Paul says in 11:11-15, their casting off was so that the Gentiles could be grafted in.

"riches" is often tied to bringing in the Gentiles for Paul, and the idea of the long preparedness of the mystery of bringing in the Gentiles is also a common theme.

Seeing this passage as storied in this way, makes you look to the future which in Romans 11 is that as a result of being cast off, and becoming jealous, Israel would repent and be saved.

Offspring

The Seed/Offspring (singular) of Galatians 3:16, comes through in Romans 9 as well.

In vv.6-12 all the descendants of Abraham and then Isaac are cut off except one. This is reinforced by the comment that "Rebekah had conceived children by one man" (surely unnecessary to remind us that Jacob only had one father otherwise!).

Isaac and Jacob are not just case-studies of election/reprobation because Paul says they were elected "in order that God's purpose of election might continue". The "in order that" comes again later in v. 23, and chapter 11. Good rejects in order to bring about his redemptive purposes in Christ.

The "offspring", is the remnant in v. 29. Paul quotes the passage to show that God has cast off and carried out "his sentence", but the seed remains.

No stone left standing

It is instructive to read Isaiah 28:14-29 as a background to the whole passage.

Isaiah 28:16 is quoted by Paul, but his conclusion to Romans 9-11 ("Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!...who has been his counselor?") echoes the end of Isaiah 28:14-29 ("the Lord of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom").

Isaiah describes how Israel "have made lies [their] refuge" (NB truth/lies a big theme in Romans), but that God is going to level them. He is going to utterly destroy but then start rebuilding again starting with the cornerstone. To Paul this means that he has rejected Israel so he can build a new people of Jews and Gentiles on the foundation of Christ.

Conclusion

In the light of all this, considering the OT context of Habakkuk 2:4, and reading Ezekiel (one bleak book!) in church bible studies at the moment, I believe the offence of the Gospel for the Jews was that Jesus showed that they needed to die and to raise again a new people. The Jews, like all of us, want to be told the Gospel is a extra to add on or a way of healing our old bodies. But offensively the Gospel says that we have to die and by faith live.

Death is always going to be bad news in some sense, but the good news in this is that eternal life is not more of the same, but something qualitatively different. Christopher Hitchens may hate the idea of eternally carrying on, but I suspect that is only because the life we live right now is fairly tiresome.

The new will be beyond what we can imagine, not just a polished version of the old.