family devotions: Romans 9

Over the past several months, we've been going through the Book of Romans for family worship. Only recently have I begun saving the 'devotions' that I hammer out in my phone for the evenings. We try to do family worship at least four nights a week (my schedule doesn't permit more than that), and sometimes we even manage to accomplish this goal. In October we began working our way out of Romans 8 and through Romans 9. Below are my notes, starting at the tail-end of Romans 8 (at the bottom of this post, though it should be at the top - silly beast!), through Romans 9. It's been a great study, and I'm excited to lunge into Romans 10 this month. 

~  Romans 9.30-33  ~

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

It's helpful to paraphrase what Paul is saying here. "What, then, can we say about all this? The Gentiles, who had no knowledge about nor care for righteousness, have been justified - or made right with God - by faith in Jesus. Meanwhile, the Jewish people, who have knowledge of righteousness in God's special revelation, have failed to be justified because they have tried to be justified by their own works. Though they have chased after righteousness, they have tripped themselves over Jesus by refusing to submit to him."

Matthew Henry notes, 

"The Gentiles knew not their guilt and misery, therefore were not careful to procure a remedy. Yet they attained to righteousness by faith. Not by becoming proselytes to the Jewish religion, and submitting to the ceremonial law; but by embracing Christ, and believing in him, and submitting to the gospel. The Jews talked much of justification and holiness, and seemed very ambitious to be the favourites of God. They sought, but not in the right way, not in the humbling way, not in the appointed way. Not by faith, not by embracing Christ, depending upon Christ, and submitting to the gospel. They expected justification by observing the precepts and ceremonies of the law of Moses. The unbelieving Jews had a fair offer of righteousness, life, and salvation, made them upon gospel terms, which they did not like, and would not accept."

So we see again that justification doesn't come from obeying the laws of Moses, or from doing good works, or being a good person. Justification - being made right with God, being forgiven of our sins and being put in good standing with Him - happens only through faith in Jesus Christ. All those who rely on their works or merit or own effort will fail to be to justified. 

It's interesting to note the paradox we see here between human free will and the sovereignty of God. Throughout Romans 9 (and the rest of his letters) Paul has made it clear that God has  chosen His elect from before the foundation of the world and that He calls these chosen people to faith and repentance. The ultimate reason anyone chooses or rejects Jesus is because they were destined to do so. Here, however, Paul says that the Jews who reject Jesus do so because they are seeking righteousness in the wrong way. So we have two reasons for the choices people make: God's sovereign choice and man's free decisions. How can this be? 

Charles Ellicott writes, 

"The freedom of the will and the absolute sovereignty of God are two propositions which, though apparently contradictory, are both really true at one and the same time. When stated singly, each is apt to appear one-sided. They are reconciled, as it were, beneath the surface, in some way inscrutable to us." 

So we see that both God's sovereignty over human choices and mankind's freedom of choice are mentioned in scripture. Both are true at the same time, and they are reconciled in a way we cannot grasp - hence they are a paradox. Scripture is full of such paradoxes, presenting truth in two seemingly opposite tracks that only work when they're next to each other and held in tension, like a bowstring on a bow. Jesus is fully God and fully man. God is three and God is one. Jesus  says he does not lose a sheep in John 10 and yet says the unfruitful are cut off in John 15. In all these biblical truths we have two seemingly at odds truths held at tension. Here, at the end of Romans 9,  Paul embraces the two realities that the Jewish people rejected Jesus because that was God's sovereign choice AND because they freely chose to reject him. Paul embraced both these realities without agonizing over how it all worked together. The Jews who rejected Jesus did so because they were destined to do so, and they did so because they chose to do so from their own freedom of choice. 

~  Romans 9.25-29  ~

As He says also in Hosea,

“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’ And her who was not beloved, ‘beloved.’” “And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘you are not My people,’ There they shall be called sons of the living God.” 

Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, 

“Though the number of the sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved; for the Lord will execute His word on the earth, thoroughly and quickly.” 

And just as Isaiah foretold,

“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left to us a posterity, We would have become like Sodom, and would have resembled Gomorrah.”

Paul has just said that God is calling people not only from ethnic Israel but also from the Gentiles, too. Gentiles - non-Jews - are now included in God's covenant family by virtue of putting their faith in Jesus and repenting of their sins. Paul quotes the prophet Hosea to show that this was the original plan all along. The entrance of Gentiles into God's covenant family as full-fledged members without having to be circumcised, obey Jewish holy days, or eating a Jewish diet was God's intention when He first called Abraham. 

Does the admittance of Gentiles into God's covenant family mean that God has been unfaithful to the Jewish people? Absolutely not! Paul has harsh words to say about the Jewish people who rejected Jesus and crucified him and who continue seeking after God's righteousness through their own works and prideful heritage; however, this doesn't mean that the Jewish people have been replaced. God still loves the Jews and is calling them to Himself. While the vast majority of Jews have turned against Jesus, there is a small minority - a remnant - whom God is preserving for Himself. As we will see in Romans 11, this remnant is but a foretaste of a future in gathering of Jewish people to faith in Jesus. 

Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah, who spoke of a remnant or small minority of Jews escaping the catastrophic destruction to be visited on Judah by the Babylonians. This remnant was the portion of Jews who were deported to exile in Babylon and later returned under the Persians. Though the majority of Jews were killed or enslaved by the Babylonians, some survived to return to Israel. This minority, this remnant, were the ones God chose to save. The concept of a remnant being saved goes back even further to the days of the prophet Elijah. During Elijah's ministry, the wicked Queen Jezebel ruled over Israel - her husband Ahab cared little for ruling - and she persecuted the worshipers of Yahweh and sought to replace Yahweh worship with the worship of the false god Baal. As Israelites wife and far embraced her religious corruption and began worshipping Baal, Elijah lamented that he was alone in opposition to her program and in his devotion to God. God responded that this wasn't the case and that he had preserved 7000 worshippers in Israel. These 7000 were a remnant who remained true to God, and they would be victorious over Jezebel's schemes.

Flashing forward to the first century AD, Paul says that God has continued to preserve a remnant just as He did in the past. This remnant is those whom God has called out of the Jewish people who have put their faith in Jesus. This is a work of mercy, and if it weren't for God's mercy towards the remnant, then the nation of Israel would've been wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah. Absent God's mercy, even the chosen people would be doomed. 

The theologian Albert Barnes, meditating on this passage, draws four key points (and I paraphrase at points): 

(1) The existence of faith in Jesus among a people owes itself to the mercy of God. Absent God's mercy, no nation would possess any Christians. 

(2) It is because of God's mercy that "any men" are kept from sin and any nation from destruction. All nations fall short of God's design for just nations; the fact that nations aren't immediately wiped out is a testament to God's patient mercy. 

(3) Paul shows us the value of faithful people in a nation. Ten would've saved Sodom from destruction, and a few saved Judah from the Assyrians. There are times God withholds judgment on wicked nations for the sake of His people in those nations. 

(4) God has the right to withdraw His mercies from any nation, however exalted their privileges, and leave them to ruin. Thus we should not be arrogant or prideful but fear God. 

In our western culture, it is increasingly "uncool" to be a Christian who actually believes and practices the historic, orthodox faith. The only acceptable Christianity is one which reinterprets the Bible through culture's paganism. We ought to pray for revival, and remain steadfastly devoted to God and His ways in our hearts and lives; but we also must be realists: if our nation continues rejecting God and opposing Him in new and clever ways, then we shouldn't assume God's mercy will remain on our land. When a nation rejects Jesus and sets its teeth against God, it makes itself plum pickings for judgment - yet even in the midst of such judgment, as we saw during the days of Elijah, and during the days of Isaiah, and during the days of Jeremiah, and during the days of the early church - God often preserves Himself a remnant who will tarry on into the wastelands of judgment and beyond. 

~  Romans 9.19-24  ~

You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.

Paul has just written about how God chose Pharaoh for the purpose of demonstrating His power and bringing Himself glory. To this end God hardened Pharaoh's heart. We've looked at how two things can be true at once - God hardens Pharaoh's heart while Pharaoh hardens his own heart, as Scripture teaches us - but the gut reaction to this teaching of God's sovereignty even over the wicked prompts us to ask how God could find fault with Pharaoh (and all wicked people) if Pharaoh was just doing what he was created to do. Paul doesn't answer this question with a theological treatise; rather, he directs us back to the authority of God over His creation. God can do what He wants because He is the creator. This world is God's show, and He holds exclusive rights to the plot line.

Paul makes this point by way of the analogy of a potter and his clay. This analogy isn't unique to him: both Isaiah and Jeremiah from the Old Testament used the very same analogy to establish God's sovereignty over the affairs of men and nations. A potter can make all sorts of pots: pots for vegetable soup, pots for ceremonial use, pots for trash and pots for poop. The  potter who makes an ornate Temple vase also makes simple clay pots for the outhouse. The potter has complete rights over the kind of pots he makes, and he makes pots according to his pleasure and purpose. In the same way, God has complete rights over all His creatures, humans included, and He makes people according to His pleasure and purpose. 

According to Paul, there are two types of people He makes: vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy. Vessels of wrath are the wicked who are destined for destruction; they are fashioned by God to display His just wrath against wickedness and to manifest His power over evil. Vessels of mercy - the elect - are those chosen to showcase God's mercy towards the wicked, and they are chosen "beforehand" (even before the foundation of the world, as Paul tells us in Ephesians 1.4). Both vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy are created for the purpose of bringing God glory by showcasing His attributes. 

Remember what Proverbs 16.4 tells us: "The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble." Every person, whether elect or not, has been made for a purpose, and that purpose is displaying God's glory. We all do this whether we want to or not. The gender-drunk Alphabet Nazis are serving God's purposes when they tail against the created order, and they will glorify God when He executes judgment against them; and when an adulterous glutton repents of her sins and submits to Christ, she glorifies God by showcasing His mercy towards her. All people exist for God's glory, and God has the sovereign right to fashion people the way He wants in order to bring Himself glory. 

~  Romans 9.17-18  ~

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

Paul has established that God decides to whom He will show mercy. Those who receive His mercy have been chosen before the foundation of the world and according to God's purposes and not because they have any merit or worth in themselves. God's choice of who is chosen and who is rejected is done according to His great plan for history. Here Paul looks at Pharaoh from the Old Testament story of the Exodus to show how God not only chooses some for mercy but also hardens the hearts of others - and these choices, again, are according to God's predetermined purpose and plan.

We know the story: God calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, and Moses commands Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. Pharaoh repeatedly refuses, and so God punishes Egypt with ten plagues. Pharaoh relents - for a time - and the Israelites head east. Pharaoh changes his mind and decides to recapture the Israelites, but they are delivered by a miraculous crossing through the Red Sea while Pharaoh's charioteers are destroyed. Pharaoh was brought into the world and set on the world stage for the purpose of showcasing God's power. This happened through the ten plagues on Egypt and the Israelites' deliverance when crossing the Red Sea. The result was that God's name was proclaimed throughout all the land. 

It's a common saying that "God has a plan for my life." That is absolutely true. However, we error when we assume that God's plan for our lives is to give us what we want and make us happy. Scripture reveals that God does indeed have plans for our lives, but those plans are laid not for our glory but for His. Some of us are destined for great things, others for mundane things. Some of us are destined for lives of ease; others for lives of hardship. Some are destined to live lives that showcase God's mercy; others for lives that showcase God's wrath. God had a plan for Pharaoh's life, and the point of that plan was to bring God glory. What is true for Pharaoh is true for us: we exist for God's glory, and His plans for our lives are to showcase His glorious attributes. 

Albert Barnes, commenting on this passage, makes several points (and I paraphrase): 

(1) God meant to accomplish some great purposes by Pharaoh's existence and conduct.

(2) God kept him, or sustained him, with reference to the divine purposes for him. 

(3) God had control over the haughty and wicked monarch. He could take his life, or he could continue him on earth. As he had control over all things that could affect the pride, the feelings, and the happiness of the monarch, so he had control over the monarch himself.

(4) "he placed him in circumstances just suited to develop his character." He kept him amidst those circumstances until his character was fully developed.

(5) he did not exert a positive evil influence on the mind of Pharaoh; for,

(6) In all this the monarch acted freely. He did what he chose to do. He pursued his own course. He was voluntary in his schemes of oppressing the Israelites. He was voluntary in his opposition to God. He was voluntary when he pursued the Israelites to the Red sea. In all his doings he acted as he chose to do, and with a determined "choice of evil," from which neither warning nor judgment would turn him away. Thus, he is said to have hardened his own heart; Exodus 8:15.

(7) and so, neither Pharaoh nor any sinner can justly blame God for placing them in circumstances where they shall develop their own character, and show what they are. It is not the fault of God, but their own fault. The sinner is not compelled to sin; nor is God under obligation to save him contrary to the prevalent desires and wishes of the sinner himself.

Barnes makes an excellent point when he reminds us that not only did God harden Pharaoh's heart but Pharaoh hardened his own heart. When you read the Exodus narrative, you see both hardenings acknowledged. It isn't as if Pharaoh was a puppet whose strings were pulled this way and that; what God ordained for Pharaoh was what Pharaoh desired to do. In the ultimate sense, God hardened Pharaoh's heart; on the ground floor, so to speak, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Both of these realities are true at once, and this is why, on the one hand, God is in control and yet not the author of sin; it is also why, on the other hand, Pharaoh is truly guilty for his choices even though they were ordained by God. Theologians throughout the millennia have sought to understand the dynamics of this tension between divine sovereignty and human freedom, with some emphasizing God's sovereignty over human freedom and others emphasizing human freedom over God's sovereignty. The Bible teaches both to be equally and powerfully true. This is what is called a paradox, when two things seemingly at odds are in truth totally in harmony. The problem is that we finite human creatures lack the intellectual aptitude to understand how it works, for the dynamics are truly located in the mind of God. 

All that aside, what key points do we learn from this passage?

(1) God is in control of sinners,

(2) Sinners are guilty for their sinful choices, and

(3) All people - sinners and saints alike - exist to bring God glory in their own ways and according to His predetermined plan for history. 

~  Romans 9.14-16  ~

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Paul has just written about how God chose Jacob but rejected Esau as the recipient of His covenant promises. One might wonder if God is unjust for rejecting Esau, and to this Paul replies, "Absolutely not!" Paul establishes that God has the right to choose to whom He shows mercy, and His choice in showing mercy isn't dependent upon man's efforts but on God's own choice for His purposes. This sounds callous, but we must bear in mind that none of us deserve God's favor or mercy. God has the right to pardon whom He wants and to save people on His own terms, according to His purposes and pleasure. Within these declarations, there are several truths as outlined by the theologian Albert Barnes (and I paraphrase):

(1) That God chooses whom He will as a sovereign, without giving an account of the reason of his choice to any.

(2) that God does it without regard to any claim on the part of man; for man is regarded as worthless of merit and has no right to God's mercy.

(3) that God will do it to any extent which he pleases, and in whatever time and manner may best accord with His own good pleasure.

(4) that God has regard to a definite number and that on that number He intends to bestow eternal life; and,

(5) That no one has a right to complain.

Barnes continues, 

"It is proof of his benevolence that any are saved; and where none have a claim, where all are justly condemned, he has a right to pardon whom he pleases. The executive of a country may select any number of criminals whom he may see fit to pardon, or who may be forgiven in consistency with the supremacy of the laws and the welfare of the community and none has a right to complain, but every good citizen should rejoice that any may be pardoned with safety. So in the moral world, and under the administration of its holy Sovereign, it should be a matter of joy that any can be pardoned and saved; and not a subject of murmuring and complaint that those who shall finally deserve to die shall be consigned to woe."

The Apostle Paul establishes, then, that God is not unjust for showing mercy to whom He chooses to show mercy. First, it is God's right to extend mercy to whomever He pleases; He doesn't have to show mercy to all, and He doesn't have to show mercy to any. Second, all men stand before God as criminals, guilty of sin and worthy of punishment. God would be just in condemning everyone to hell as we deserve. Third, God's justice isn't called into question when He shows mercy, for He has satisfied His justice for His elect by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. For those whom God chooses, our sin was put on Christ and justice was executed when He suffered the death we deserve. 

~  Romans 9.6-13  ~

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants. For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac; for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

Because the majority of the Jewish people rejected Jesus, one might be tempted to believe that God's promises to Abraham's descendants have failed. Paul argues that this isn't the case, and he begins by reminding us that not all of Abraham's descendants were part of God's promises to Abraham's descendants. The recipients of God's promise to Abraham were winnowed down not just once but twice, first with Abraham's son Isaac, and then with Isaac's son Jacob. Abraham had lots of other children after Isaac, and the descendants of these other children weren't recipients of the promise. The promise passed down to Isaac's descendants but only through the bloodline of Jacob: the descendants of Isaac's other son Esau weren't considered part of the promise. Thus we see, from the very beginning, that God's promises to Abraham's descendants didn't include all of Abraham's descendants but only those descendants whom God chose.

Paul focuses in on Isaac's twins Jacob and Esau as a "case study" in God's act of electing those who will receive the promise. Paul says that God loved Jacob and hated Esau; this doesn't mean that God literally hated Esau as we understand the term, for it was common among the Hebrews to use the terms "love" and "hatred" in a comparative sense, where the former implied strong positive attachment, and the latter, not positive hatred, but merely a less love, or the withholding of the expressions of affection. In this case God loved Jacob in that He chose him and hated Esau in that he didn't choose Him; it was Jacob who received the covenant promises and privileges passed down from his father Isaac. 

Paul says that God chose Jacob and rejected Esau before they were born; His choosing of one and the rejection or "passing over" of the other didn't happen during their lifetimes but even before they came into existence. God's choosing of the one and passing over of the other thus had nothing to do with their actions, good or bad, since their election preceded their choices in life. If one wasn't chosen and one wasn't passed over because of what they did or didn't do, then what was God's reason behind His choice of the one and His passing over of the other? Paul locates the reason with God's own purpose: God chooses whom He chooses and rejects whom He rejects for His own purposes, whatever that purpose might be. 

John Calvin writes regarding this passage:

"We have then the whole stability of our election enclosed in the purpose of God alone: here merits avail nothing, as they issue in nothing but death; no worthiness is regarded, for there is none; but the goodness of God reigns alone. False then is the dogma, and contrary to God’s word,—that God elects or rejects, as he foresees each to be worthy or unworthy of his favour." 

Matthew Henry writes, 

"Not only some of Abraham's seed were chosen, and others not, but God therein wrought according to the counsel of his own will. God foresaw both Esau and Jacob as born in sin, by nature children of wrath even as others. If left to themselves they would have continued in sin through life; but for wise and holy reasons, not made known to us, he purposed to change Jacob's heart, and to leave Esau to his perverseness."

God's choice of some and rejection of others even before they are born, and doing so according to His own plans and purposes without any reference to individual works, is a tough pill to swallow. Romans 9-11 is full of such difficult truths, as we will see. We are inclined to believe that God responds to our actions, so that we can earn His choice by doing the right things. We are self-centered creatures in that we view the world - and, by extension, God - as orbiting around us. Our perspective and experience of life is locked into our own heads, limited in time and space, so this is understandable. It's no different than  the way astronomers used to believe the sun and moon and stars orbited the earth; because of their position locked onto the earth, it certainly seemed that way from their perspective. If it wasn't for high-tech math and orbital telescopes, we would still believe the sun, moon, and stars orbited the earth. The Bible is like a theological telescope: it shows us what reality really is, and through Scripture we learn that God doesn't orbit around us, we orbit around Him. God doesn't exist for us; we exist for Him. God, as Creator, has every right to use us as He pleases. He has the right to choose one and pass over another for His own wise purposes and for the praise of His glory. 

~  Romans 9.1-5  ~

I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Over the past couple weeks we've seen Paul writing about suffering in the life of the Christian. He now switches tack and addresses a new issue: "If Jesus is the fulfillment of God's promises to His people, then how come the majority of the Jews have rejected Him?" The unfortunate reality is that the Jewish people, by and large, have rejected Jesus. Some have rejected Jesus because he isn't what they expected: they believed the Messiah would be a political warrior-king who would destroy Israel's political oppressors and vault Israel to the top tier of the world stage. Some have rejected him because they have taken pride in their Jewish heritage to the exclusion of seeking God. Why is this the case, what does this mean for the Jewish people, and does this mean God has been unfaithful to His covenant with Abraham? These are the three principal questions Paul seeks to answer in Romans 9-11. Paul doesn't answer those questions immediately, but there are three things worthy of note in these few verses: 

(1) Privileges Do Not Equal Salvation. Paul lists all sorts of privileges the Jewish people have as God's original covenant people: they were adopted as God's sons - in that Israel became God's own nation - and to them belong "the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple services and the promises," and they trace their lineage back to the patriarchal giants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Jewish people had all sorts of privileges, but this didn't mean they were automatically saved. God still required obedience and devotion; having Abraham's blood in your veins counts for nothing if you're not loyal to God. The Jewish people took pride in all that God had given them, but in their pride they missed what mattered. This is an easy trap to fall into: as Christians we can take pride in having the truth, in being moral, and in doing the right things (or not doing the wrong things), but if our hearts are turned against God, then we should question our salvation. 

(2) It is Okay to Grieve. Paul grieves over the fact that so many of his Jewish brothers and sisters have not only rejected Jesus but hold him in contempt. Paul is a strong believer in God's sovereignty and knows that salvation belongs to the Lord; he knows that if God willed it, all his brethren would put their faith in Jesus and repent of their sins. Paul praises God for His sovereign will and gives God glory, but that doesn't mean he likes it all the time. Putting our trust in God's Providence and sovereignty doesn't keep us from weeping at the destruction of lost men, even though we know they are doomed by the just judgment of God. At times the sovereignty of God can be a tough pill to swallow, and that's okay. Paul can relate.

(3) The Issue is with the Jewish People, Not the Jewish Nation. This is an important point to keep in mind as we plunge deeper into Romans 9-11. There are two different ways to interpret Romans 9-11: one insists that Paul is writing about the fate of nations, the other than Paul is writing about the fates of individuals. The entire argument begins here, in the first verses of Romans 9, and Paul's anguish isn't directed towards the nation of Israel for rejecting Jesus but towards his Jewish brothers who've rejected Christ. The emphasis isn't on political Israel but on the Jewish people. The emphasis is individual rather than national in scope. 

~  Romans 8.31-39  ~

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, "For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul has been writing about suffering in the life of a Christian, and he's had a lot to say about it. He paints suffering as a necessary reality in the Christian's life, and suffering is ordained by God so that we become more and more like Jesus. The fact that we experience suffering doesn't mean that God has forsaken us or doesn't care about us; it means that God is more concerned for our wholeness than our happiness. He is more concerned about accomplishing His purposes through us than in giving us everything we want.

Paul sums up everything he's written on the subject by emphatically stating that God is for us. He is on our side. He has chosen us as His own, He has called us to life in Christ, He has forgiven our sins and declared us innocent and made us righteous; He is working in our hearts and lives and will bring us to our inheritance in the new heavens and the new earth. Because of this great reality, who can stand against God and what He purposes in us? We don't need to fear anyone or anything, no matter what comes our way. He will freely give us all things when He remakes the cosmos; and though men may slander us and condemn us, Christ is the one with the authority to condemn, and He doesn't condemn us but intercedes for us before God's throne. We are in good hands.

What, then, can separate us from Christ's love? Paul asks if tribulation, distress, or persecution can separate us from Christ's love. It's easy to be tempted to believe, when you're experiencing these things, that God's love has departed. When we experience any kind of trouble or evil, or the inward distress we feel when difficulties reduce us to nothing so that we don't know how to move forward, or when the ungodly tyrannically oppress God's people for unjust means - when we experience these things, we may be tempted to think that we have fallen out of God's favor. When we suffer hunger, or struggle to acquire the provisions needed for daily life, or live in constant threat of danger or even death, we may be tempted to question God's presence and favor. In these times we would do well to remember that these experiences aren't rare in the life of the faithful; Paul makes this point by quoting Psalm 44.22, in which the psalmist laments, "For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Sometimes the Christian life can be one of great suffering and slaughter at the hands of the ungodly; this has happened throughout history multiple times, and is a common occurrence in China, Somalia, and most recently Afghanistan, where Christians are being hunted down and murdered in their homes. 

Paul then says something remarkable: that in all these things - tribulations, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, the sword, and everything in between - Christians are conquerors through Christ. Paul is taking the long-eye view: though in the present we may suffer all sorts of difficulties, even to the point of death for the sake of Christ, we will be vindicated at the end. When the curtain on this present evil age falls, God will judge evil and all evildoers; He will cleanse the cosmos of evil; and we will inherit a restored universe in new physical bodies in which we will laugh and love and work and play and worship our Creator for all eternity. When all is said and done, God and His people will have the final word and will win the game. We will conquer by virtue of Christ. All our suffering in this life is according to God's purpose and for our good. This leads Paul into proclaiming the great truth that nothing - absolutely NOTHING - can separate us from the love of Christ. 

John Calvin, meditating on this passage, writes, 

"[He] who is persuaded of God’s kindness towards him, is able to stand firm in the heaviest afflictions. These usually harass men in no small degree, and for various reasons,—because they interpret them as tokens of God’s wrath, or think themselves to be forsaken by God, or see no end to other similar reasons; but when the mind is purged from such mistakes, it becomes calm, and quietly rests."

~  Romans 8.29-30  ~

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

Paul says that those whom God foreknew, He predestined to conformity to the image of His Son - but who are those whom God foreknew? There are two ways to answer this question. The first is to argue that they are the ones whom God knew would come to Him, and with this knowledge of the future, He predestined them to conformity to the image of Christ. The second answer is that they are those whom God chose before the foundation of the world to call to Himself and to save; these are those whom God predestined to conformity to the image of Christ. Whichever route you take - the Arminian position or the Calvinist position - the end result is the same: those who belong to God have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.

Arminians and Calvinists argue about what take is best in understanding the nature of God's predestination: "Does God predestine those whom He saves, or does He predestine those whom He knows will respond to the gospel in faith?" Calvinists don't like the idea that God predestines those who choose Him, because it puts the initiating act on human will, so that God is beholden to our choices and is reacting rather than acting to man. Arminians don't like the idea that God chooses beforehand who will come to Him, because it means that while some people are chosen to belong to Him before the foundation of the world, others are passively rejected and thus damned from the womb. Arminians often say that the Calvinist teaching that God chooses from before creation whom to save makes God into a monster, because He could've chosen everyone; they ignore the fact that by their own logic, God remains a monster, because He has created a world in which many people reject Him. Whatever approach you take to the question at hand - "Does God choose me first or do I choose Him first?" - there remains the uncomfortable reality that not everyone is chosen or chooses God, and this is the world He has made. 

When it comes to the chicken and the egg question - "Did God choose me first or did I choose Him first?" - the answer must be found in Scripture. Thankfully Scripture answers this question. Let's look, for example, at just a few verses from the Gospel of John. What does Jesus say?

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. [John 6.37]

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. [John 6.44]

Since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. [John 17.2]

In these three verses - many of which are repeated throughout the Gospel of John in various ways - Jesus says that those who come to him - those who become Christians - are those whom the Father gives him; and those whom the Father gives to Jesus come to Jesus because the Father draws them to Jesus. We have, then, a two-part process: God chooses who will submit to Jesus, and He draws them to Jesus. This first part of the process is called election (in which God chooses whom He will save from before the foundation of the world), and the second part is called "the calling of God" (in which God enlightens a man's spirit, opens his eyes and heart, and draws Him to Jesus). 

Going back to Romans, we see this two-part process at play. Paul writes of those whom God predestined to conformity to the image of Christ; those who are predestined to conformity to the image of Christ are those whom God has chosen from before the foundation of the world. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 1.3-6: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." We see that God chose us even before we were born - even before the creation of the world - and in doing so He chose that we would be "holy and blameless before Him." His choosing of the elect was done by love according to the kindness of His will and for the praise of His glory and grace. 

Here Paul says that those whom God predestined are those whom God calls. If God predestined those who simply responded in faith and repentance by their own will to the gospel, then Paul has it backwards: calling should come before predestination. But He has predestination - the choosing of the elect before the foundation of the world - coming before the calling of God. Those whom God chose to save even before He created the world are the ones whom God calls; these are the ones whose hearts are enlightened and whose eyes are opened so that they turn to Jesus in faith and repentance.  

Those who are called by God - the elect - are also justified by God. Justification is what happens when God declares a sinner to be just - or in good standing with God - and makes him righteous. When we turn to Jesus in faith and repentance, Christ's sacrifice is applied to us: our sins are forgiven, the power of sin over us is broken, and we are reconciled with God. God looks at us as if we had never sinned, for our sins and sinfulness have been adequately dealt with by Jesus' sacrifice. Paul goes on to say that those who are predestined, called, and justified are also glorified. Paul is speaking about the future time when all of God's people will be given new bodies to live in a new universe free of death and decay. This is a future event, but Paul writes about it as if it has already happened. He's using a Hebrew way of writing in which a future event is given grammatically as a past event because of its certainty. It is so certain that it might as well have already happened.

So we see a chain of action in the life of the believer. Before the creation of the world, God chose whom He would save. These are His elect. When that person comes along with the rhythms of history, God calls that person to Him. That person's heart is enlightened and his eyes are opened. He submits to Jesus in faith and repentance, and He is justified in the present and will be certainly glorified in the future. 

Why, though, does Paul put this here? Remember that he has been writing about suffering in the life of a Christian. In the verses we read last week, we saw that whatever happens in our life is ordained by God and is intended for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose. Here Paul is elaborating on what that "good" is: it is our growth and development as Christians so that we are increasingly conformed to the image of Christ, becoming "holy and blameless" before God.