Many first-generation Christians in India know a particular kind of ache. They have found something they believe is the best news in the world, and the people they love most — parents, brothers, the whole family back in the village — do not share it, and may never. They would give almost anything for them. Paul writes Romans 9 from inside that ache. Having just said that nothing can separate believers from God's love, he stops. His own people, Israel, to whom the covenants, the law, the promises and the Messiah himself belong, have largely said no. He says he could wish himself cut off for their sake. The argument that follows is hard, but it begins in tears.
Where it sits in the story: Act 3 and Act 5 meet head-on. The Bible's story ran through Israel, chosen to bless the nations. Now the Messiah has come and the nations are streaming in, while most of Israel stands apart. If God's promises to Israel have failed, how can the Roman believers trust the promises of Romans 8? Chapters 9–11 are Paul's answer, and they are the climax of the letter, not a detour.
What this chapter is doing: To face the question of whether God has been faithful to Israel, and to begin answering it: God's word has not failed, because his promise has always worked by his free choosing and mercy, not by birth alone.
- 9:1–5 — Paul has great sorrow and unceasing anguish. He could wish himself cursed and cut off from Christ for his own people, to whom belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law, the worship and the promises, the patriarchs, and from whom the Messiah comes.
- 9:6–13 — God's word has not failed, for not all descended from Israel are Israel. The promise came through Isaac, not all Abraham's sons; and before Jacob and Esau were born or had done anything, it was said the older would serve the younger, so that God's purpose of choosing might stand.
- 9:14–24 — Is God unjust? No. He told Moses he will have mercy on whom he has mercy, and he raised up Pharaoh to show his power. Who are you, a human, to answer back to God? Can the pot say to the potter, why did you make me like this? God has patiently endured, and has called people from Jews and Gentiles alike.
- 9:25–29 — Hosea foretold that those who were not God's people would be called his people; Isaiah said that though Israel be as many as the sand, only a remnant would be saved.
- 9:30–33 — The strange result: Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness have found it through faith, while Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not reach it, because they pursued it as if by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone laid in Zion.
- Individual, unconditional election (Augustinian and Calvinist): God freely chooses some for salvation apart from anything they do; 'before they had done anything good or bad' and the potter image are read this way.
- Corporate or conditional election (Arminian, Wesleyan and many others): God chooses a people — in Christ — and individuals share in that election through faith; Jacob and Esau, quoted from Malachi, stand for the nations of Israel and Edom.
- Vocational election (many recent scholars): the chapter concerns God's choice of who carries his purpose in history, including Israel's temporary hardening for the Gentiles' sake; the question of final destiny is taken up, with hope, in Romans 11.
Key verse: Romans 9:2–3 · So what: Romans 9 has too often been read as a cold chart of who is saved and who is not. Read in order, it starts with a man in anguish for his family and people. However one understands election, the chapter should not produce Christians who look down on Jews or anyone else; Paul's attitude to those who have not believed is grief and longing, not contempt.