Israels Spiritual Claims

Romans – A Treatise
Chapter Nine
ISRAEL’S SPIRITUAL CLAIMS

Scripture Reading: verses 23-32

AND THAT HE MIGHT MAKE KNOWN THE RICHES OF HIS GLORY ON THE VESSELS OF MERCY, WHICH HE HAD AFORE PREPARED UNTO GLORY, EVEN US, WHOM HE HATH CALLED, NOT OF THE JEWS ONLY, BUT ALSO OF THE GENTILES? AS HE SAITH ALSO IN OSEE, I WILL CALL THEM MY PEOPLE, WHICH WERE NOT MY PEOPLE; AND HER BELOVED, WHICH WAS NOT BELOVED. AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID UNTO THEM, YE ARE NOT MY PEOPLE; THERE SHALL THEY BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF THE LIVING GOD. ESAIAS ALSO CRIETH CONCERNING ISRAEL, THOUGH THE NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL BE AS THE SAND OF THE SEA, A REMNANT SHALL BE SAVED: FOR HE WILL FINISH THE WORK, AND CUT IT SHORT IN RIGHTEOUSNESS: BECAUSE A SHORT WORK WILL THE LORD MAKE UPON THE EARTH. AND AS ESAIAS SAID BEFORE, EXCEPT THE LORD OF SABAOTH HAD LEFT US A SEED, WE HAD BEEN AS SODOM, AND BEEN MADE LIKE UNTO GOMORRAH. WHAT SHALL WE SAY THEN? THAT THE GENTILES, WHICH FOLLOWED NOT AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS, HAVE ATTAINED TO RIGHTEOUSNESS, EVEN THE RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF FAITH. BUT ISRAEL, WHICH FOLLOWED AFTER THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, HATH NOT ATTAINED TO THE LAW OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. WHEREFORE? BECAUSE THEY SOUGHT IT NOT BY FAITH, BUT AS IT WERE BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW. FOR THEY STUMBLED AT THAT STUMBLINGSTONE.

All of this is in relation to Israel nationally and their claims concerning the favor of God by birthright. Therefore, Paul rapidly goes through the entire history of the children of Israel to indicate that, whereas they were constant failures on the side of the earthly covenant, yet God Himself never failed or fails. He is regarded as the Potter in whose hands one vessel He is forming proves unsatisfactory and must be discarded, while another proves satisfactory according to the will of the Potter.

In verses 22 and 23 we have two kinds of vessels contrasted: the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction and the vessels of mercy which He had afore prepared unto glory. The great question now before the court pertains to the rectitude of the righteousness of such procedure. It is a difficult question, and it is difficult to understand how God can favor certain individuals and execute His disfavor on others. But our chief difficulty is this: the time element is predominantly before our vision. We forget that God, who devised the plan of universal blessing in eternity past, had the ability, the foreknowledge, to look through the centuries, making note that certain of His creatures would respond to His mercy and others would reject it. In view of what He foreknew, He could lay plans that those who, in time, would be disobedient should be destined toward wrath, while those who, in time, would be obedient should be prepared unto glory. This does not conflict with the fact that God’s offer of mercy is presented to His intelligent creatures and each shall determine whether to be a vessel of wrath or of mercy, according to the way in which God’s goodness, presented in God’s way, was treated.

Thus, in verse 24, he intimates that the calling of God goes out, not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles.¹ Here the grace of God breaks over the bounds of Israel and reaches a people not called His people. Concerning this, Paul quotes both from Osee (Hosea) and Isaiah.

In verse 27, he touches the kernel of this truth. God’s promise had been that Israel would be as the sand of the sea, yet Paul says a remnant shall be saved.² How does this come about? Verse 28 tells us, “He will finish the work, and cut it short in right-eousness; because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.” In other words, the Spirit of God does not always strive with men. There is a limit to His activity. God may appear very long-suffering for many weeks, months, years, and even centuries. But sooner or later the end of His patience is reached and He brings the entire moral situation to a crisis. We find the large majority to whom He offered endless blessing rejected it and a mere remnant comes into the blessing. This is true of Israel nationally. They sprang from Abraham. They had the promises of the covenant and all the promises of blessing outlined in this chapter, but the vast majority of them disobeyed God and forfeited their inheritance.

In verse 29, Esaias goes further, stating that except the Lord had left us a seed, we had been as Sodom or Gomorrah. It is the assertion that God’s purpose must be carried out in spite of man’s failure. Nationally, He gave to Israel the offer of a princely position on the earth and, if the faith of each had been enough to appropriate that blessing, they would have been shining as the stars of heaven in the firmament of earth's glory. The vast majority refused it and Israel nationally, represented in the Jews today, instead of being as the stars of heaven, are as the dust of the earth. They are trampled under foot by mankind even as men walk on the dust beneath their feet. What is the reason for it all? Isaiah, their own prophet, has pointed out that when they turn their back on God –refering to all Israel – God will not be frustrated in His purpose. He is the Lord of Hosts, and He must have the hosts.

If Israel refused to constitute the hosts of the Lord, then He shall break beyond their boundaries and gather in Gentile nations, as the Scripture says in the Gospels, “that my house may be full.” It is the same truth. Jehovah’s servants first go into the streets and lanes of the city of Jerusalem to bring in guests for the great supper; but most refuse the offer. Then they go beyond Jerusalem, outside the pale of Israel, into the highways and hedges, among the Gentiles, compeling them to come in so God’s house may be full.

The criterion is that God’s purpose will be carried out and, if a people refuses to go in God’s way, He shall find others to be vessels of mercy. In verses 31 and 32 this great truth is presented: Israel refused to go in the way of God’s righteousness when they refused their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, who became a stumbling stone to them.

Then the Gospel of God’s grace came to those of us who are not of Israel. He is made unto us righteousness for we have become the righteousness of God in Him. Here’s the great question: What claim do the Jews have to the favor of God today? From a fleshly point of view they have failed, so their only claim is in Christ the Lord. As it is written in verse 33: “Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on Him shall not be ashamed.” Their problems, like ours, will be solved only when we accept the same Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Footnotes:
¹ Romans 9:24 concludes the long question that began back in Romans 9:22 with the words “What if.” The import of this long interrogation is “Who should think it extraordinary, or something to wonder about, that God would at last reject that nation which had so long been rejecting Him?” Paul at this point proceeded to show, by the quotation of a number of prophecies, that just these very things, the calling of the Gentiles and the rejection of Israel had been foretold by God’s prophets. The verse quoted here is from Hosea 2:23 and can be understood in no other way except as a promise that Gentiles will finally become God’s people.
² The first two verses of this passage are from Isaiah 10:22, 23, which in the KJV reads thus: “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet a remnant of them shall return: the consumption decreed shall overflow with righteousness. For the Lord God of hosts shall make a consumption, even determined, in the midst of the land.” Paul’s use of that Scripture is interesting. He quoted it giving the sense, not the exact words. Paul used Isaiah’s prophecy that only a remnant of Israel should return from captivity as an argument that only a small part of Israel would be saved. All of this fitted perfectly into Paul’s reasoning that merely being a Jew was insufficient grounds for expecting salvation. Paul next quoted Isaiah 1:9, thus: “Except the Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.” Paul’s quotation in the English Revised Version (1885) has “Lord of Sabaoth” for “Lord of hosts,” the meaning being the same. As the word “host” is used in reference to any multitude arranged in order, as of men in an army, of angels, of the stars, or of all the heavenly bodies, including the sun and moon, so the expression “Lord of hosts” may mean Lord of armies, Lord of angels, Lord of heaven, or of the universe as a marshaled host. Therefore, it is probable that God being called Lord of hosts is equivalent to the Lord of the universe. Of particular significance, the root meaning clings to the expression “arranged in order.” God is always to be understood as a God of order; and, as Paul said in another place, “God is not the author of confusion” (1 Cor. 14:13). In his book, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 257, H.C.G. Moule explained Paul’s use of Isaiah’s words in this place, thus: “Here again is a first and second incidence of the prophecy. In every stage of the history of sin and redemption, the apostle, in the Spirit, sees an embryo of the Great Development. So in the woefully limited number of the exiles who returned from the old captivity, he sees an embodied prophecy of the fewness of the sons of Israel who shall return from the exile of incredulity to their true Messiah.”