Studying His Word and His Works

Listen to the study here: Romans 11:1-10

Read here: Romans 11

Review

• Calvin on the theme of Romans: “Man’s only righteousness is the mercy of God in Christ, when it is offered by the Gospel and received by faith.” Romans 1:17 and elsewhere.
• IMPORTANT: Paul wrote the letter to the saints (1:7), and the letter is about the gospel, which is a reminder we need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily. 
• Luther: Simul iustus et peccator = At the same time, righteous and a sinner! Romans 3:23-25
• In Ch. 1-3 Paul shows us our unrighteousness, and God’s wrath against that, and then switches to Christ’s righteousness as our covering, the propitiation of our sins (Romans 3:25) as the final sacrifice for sin, fulfilling the promise to Abraham, who had faith before any works
• Faith being “counted” or “credited to our account” as righteousness is mentioned 11 times in Chapter 4! If “none are righteous” as Paul wrote in Romans 3:10, then this saving faith must be a gift from God.
• Ch. 5, We now have peace with God, access to God, and hope, because of what Christ did for us while we were weak(v. 6), sinners (v. 8), and enemies (v. 10). Christ did this “at the right time,” (v. 6), connecting Christ’s work on the cross and God’s plan of redemption to real history (not just a myth or legend).
• Atonement(5:6-11): Jesus satisfying God’s wrath for us through His sacrificial death on the cross.
• Ch. 5 and 6 describe federalism, this idea of one man making a difference, for righteousness (Jesus) or wickedness (Adam). 
• Ch 6 ended with lots of words pointing to the new road we are now on with Christ, the sanctification road.
  • Service is the key word, “slaves” used 8 times
  • “Present yourselves”(5), “Leads to”(5)
• Sproul: “our regeneration, our rebirth was the work of one Person, God. It was not a joint venture; but from the moment we take our first breath of regenerated spiritual life, it  becomes a joint effort.” the work of one Person is what salvation is about. The joint venture is what sanctification is about. Ch.6 ends and we continue into Ch.7 describing what this “sanctification road” looks like to walk down. We were on the sin road that leads to death, but now we are on the grace road that leads to eternal life.
• Chapter 8 is describing the assurance we have as Christians in salvation. Deus pro nobis – God for us. It is a reminder of God’s sovereignty over our salvation, and God’s infinite wisdom, in the creation, fall, redemption plan he has for not just us, but the whole world. Ultimately, God, not us, foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies and glorifies. There are many verses (Romans 2:4, John 3:16, etc) that point to God’s patience with everyone, His love for everyone, that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), so I believe there is some free will in there somewhere, perhaps an ability to answer the call, or not. But, even if we answer the call, it is God who initiated. Even if we are crying out for God, “feeling our way to Him” like Acts 17:27 says, we are only doing this because He has already called. We are MORE THAN CONQUERORS, not on our own of course, but “through Him who loved us” from before time began. 
• Chapter 9 continues on the point of election, which, if you think about it, Paul has been discussing since Romans 1:1 when he said he was “set apart”. Paul continues to hammer the point that it is God’s free will, not ours, that matters most. It’s good to keep in mind the complexity of God, as he is not just electing, but he is doing a bunch of things simultaneously and eternally. He is electing, foreknowing, predestining, calling, justifying, glorifying, answering prayer, “giving them over to a debased mind” (Romans 1:28-32) while also being kind as a means to lead people to repentance (Romans 2:4), showing mercy to some and hardening others (9:18). It’s like God is working on an eternal and therefore infinite scale, but also an instantaneous and therefore infinitesimal scale. Pastor John Macarthur, who went home to Jesus recently, described this as a parallelism, God’s sovereign election running alongside the “whoever believes in Him will have eternal life” of John 3:16. It is Euler’s “every instant,” of God initiating, so the saved are always indebted to Him. And it’s also Paul’s “unceasing anguish” for the lost in 9:2, something we should ask God to give us, too. And something that clearly shows that God predestines us to a team, His team, and we are working with Him to save sinners. He’s just team captain and MVP. He gets all the glory!
  • Also remember that Paul references almost 50 OT verses in Chapter 9 alone. He is retelling Israel’s story in many places to serve as a reminder of God’s sovereign will over nations, but also individuals like Pharoah, Moses, Jacob and Esau, etc. Some want to say election is only about nations, or only individuals, but this is another both/and. 
• Chapter 10 also discusses election, as well as Macarthur’s “parallelism”, or even the “3 strands are not easily broken” analogy in Ecclisiastes 4:12. That’s also what some of Chapter 10 is describing. Think about it, God could just yell the gospel down from heaven if wanted, but he chooses to use us, weak on our own but strong in Him. Ch. 10 describes a deep, personal bond God has with believers. Paul also describes Israel’s history of disobedience, how they did not hear the gospel, but in Ch. 11 again reminds that God preserves a remnant.

Intro

• Key words: God, they (6), grace (4), see(3), rejected, people, Israel, obtained(2). 
  • When I read Romans 9-11, my conclusion is that salvation was never about the Jews only. It’s always been about God’s grace to believers. ANY human that believes. And who are the believers? God’s elect. Remember Romans 4? We talked about “the promise” a lot there, and how that came through faith, not law or works (4:13). So the promise of a large nation, Israel, is based on faith, which is why we learn later how Gentiles can be grafted in. And Romans 9 starts with more about the promise, and in 9:6 even says “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” meaning that the church, the body of Christ are the true Israel. That’s what the “tree” is that Paul will get to later in Ch. 11.
  • The tree is composed of believers in God’s promises, in His covenants. God chose to use the faithful patriarchs as the roots. But, as the tree grew, some were cut off because of unbelief and Gentiles grafted in. In his sovereignty, God “gave them over” of Romans 1, and one thing he did was give them this Romans 11:8 “spirit of stupor,” so they could not see anymore.
  • It’s almost like God’s plan of election and predestination is that, simultaneously, he does know the outcome and also allows for instantaneous changes. That believers are the elect, that there are good works to walk in prepared beforehand, but maybe exactly who those were prepared for is orchestrated by God at every instant? I don’t know. He gives people over, basically gives up on them, hardens them, blinds them, but maybe that is to protect the elect? Maybe that is part of spiritual warfare? If God wasn’t involved every instant, then He wouldn’t tell us to pray, and He wouldn’t answer our prayers. He wouldn’t need us to preach the gospel, he would just do it. There is “something” going on instantaneously, but also eternally! We are not called to know exactly, perfectly, what that “something” is. We are called to believe.
  • Also regarding Ch. 11, Sproul writes: “How we understand eschatology is, to a large degree, connected to how we understand Romans 11.”
    • Eschatology: the study of last things.
      • We humans worry about the beginning and the end too much. We come up with all kinds of theories about both and can overfocus on both. While we should concern ourselves with what the Bible says about first and last things, we should not focus on that to the point of neglecting God’s main purpose for our Christian walk, to make disciples and to share the gospel (Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 10:14-17).
  • In the previous study, we talked about the deep and personal relationship God seeks with believers, so much so that He uses us to preach the gospel. We discussed how faith comes through the gospel message, which is why it is so important to preach God’s word, not just make up our own stuff. To go through the bible verse by verse. Paul spent so much of his writing on referencing the Old Testament, on “preaching the Word.” We also talked about how God made Israel jealous by saving a “foolish nation,” going after those who did not seek Him. Not showing his complete rejection of Jews, but of the unfaithful.
• Verse 1
  • Paul just finished saying in 10:19 how God would make Israel jealous with a foolish nation (Gentiles). But, in Ch. 11 Paul reminds us that, even though God himself says Israel is a “disobedient and contrary people”(10:21), he has not rejected every single Jew. Of course Paul is a perfect example here, since he was Jewish. Romans 3:10 says none are righteous, so not one Jew and not one Gentile are righteous. Adam brought the curse of an inherited sin nature to us all. Christ was the only one to live a sinless life, breaking the curse of death. His righteousness now imputed to believers. It’s always been about believers, about the faithful, the Jews having a unique position in history of being entrusted with safeguarding God’s word (Romans 3:2). Paul is reviewing what he said back in Romans 3, that the Jews’ faithlessness does not cancel out God’s faithfulness. God saves believers, that’s always been the case.
    • Sproul: The Jews have an “unquenchable awareness of their ethnic and national identity.”
    • Paul could trace his roots to the tribe of Benjamin, and all the way back to Abraham. He just touches on this briefly though, because he knows how “unprofitable and worthless” it is to spend a ton of time on that (I Timothy 1:4). 
    • You can’t conclude that God has completely rejected the Jews because Paul himself is a Jew. That is Paul’s point here.
• Verse 2
  • Paul reminds us again of God’s foreknowledge. God didn’t reject those he foreknew.
• Verses 3-4
  • Paul recount’s Elijah’s story during a very dark time in Jewish history. Imagine if your church was taken over by idol worshipers, like pre-1820 Hawaii, to the point where they were doing human sacrifices on the stage? That is basically what was happening in Israel at this time, and Elijah felt alone, being heavily persecuted. It’s not that he had wandered into a land of pagans, it’s that his land had been overtaken by pagans. He had seen other prophets killed, and then he kinda panicked, forgetting God had his back! God reassures him that he has kept for myself seven thousand men.
  • This is an incredible reminder for all of us, when we find ourselves surrounded by non-believers. Feeling like “am I the only believer here?” Instead, we should get a grip on our feelings, and look at those times as gospel opportunities.
    • Sproul has a name for this I alone am left feeling. He calls it the “Elijah syndrome.” Something true believers experience when surrounded by apostasy. But we are never alone. God hasn’t predestined things that way, and that is Paul’s point here. Christ is ALWAYS with us. And there are always other believers on Earth. We’re not alone.
  • Sproul said the church he grew up in was apostate. They sanctioned abortion on demand, celebrated the imaging of pagan goddesses, didn’t require pastors to affirm the deity of Christ or His atonement. Imagine being in that church and still being in it while it underwent this transformation to apostasy. That’s how Elijah felt! Pray this never happens to your church, or any others.
  • Note too that God kept for myself these 7,000 men. They didn’t keep themselves, God kept them, God saved them. The elect! God saves, we don’t save ourselves. Incredible.
• Verse 5
  • Are you still struggling with the idea of God’s elect? Me too! Maybe these verses will help. “The elect” are who the 7,000 were. And that’s who those chosen by grace were in verse 5. The believing Jews, the ones who, like Paul, aren’t jealous about the Gentiles, but rejoicing with their Christian brothers in their salvation.
    • We should always expect a remnant, chosen by grace.
• Verse 6,
  • The remnant helps us understand what grace is about, that it is God’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes (Psalm 118:22-23). Again, Paul emphasizes our salvation is by grace and not works.
  • He has already introduced the remnant, back in Romans 9:27, where he quoted Isaiah. And that was after an intense passage on describing God’s sovereignty in election, so that salvation is not by works but grace through faith, a saving faith given by the Holy Spirit and different than just faith that the sun will rise, etc. 
  • Grace would no longer be grace if works were involved. This is actually a really important verse! Paul is doubling down on grace, on election, on God’s sovereignty in choosing. Grace IS God’s sovereignty in choosing. And for some reason we humans don’t like it when God does the choosing. “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God” like this, Romans 9:20? Why does God get to “make from the same lump of clay, vessels for honorable use and vessels for dishonorable use,” Romans 9:21? This is a hard teaching. Paul knows this, but God’s ways are not completely knowable to us, which Paul reminds us of again at the end of Ch. 11.
  • In the Romans 10:16-21 study, we read some verses about election. It is everywhere in the Bible. Here’s another, similar list:
    • 2 Cor 4:6-7, the Light of Christ, the Holy Spirit, is in us. It is a treasure in jars of clay, to show the power is God and not us.
    • Rom 9:16, depends on God’s mercy, not human will or exertion.
    • John 6:44, No one comes to Jesus unless the Father sends them.
    • Titus 3:5, He saved us by his mercy, not by works-righteousness, but by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
    • John 1:12-13, all who believed and received, God gave the right to become children of God, born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God.
    • Romans 3:27-28, our boasting is excluded because one is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.(And this faith must be a special gift, something we were not born with, something we cannot adjust and manipulate, it is a gift and is different than just faith in the sun rising)
    • Phil 2:13, for it is God who works in you, to will and to work for His good pleasure
    • James 1:17, every good and perfect gift (including gift of faith) is from above
    • I Cor 3:6-7, (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. It is only God who gives the growth.
    • 1 Cor 2:14, The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. Remember, our sin nature is dying, but not completely dead; I think some of that “wrestling” we sense-that I sense, maybe not you but I sense-with election is the flesh is not completely dead. Almost this fear that if I accept that I am chosen by God, that I will immediately start boasting “I am chosen but he or she is not.” Focus on how I might respond instead of focused on what God did.
    • John 15:16, You did not choose Jesus, He chose you. This “election thing” doesn’t get more clear than that!
• Verse 7
  • Oh boy, there Paul goes again, talking about the elect! The remnant IS the elect, same as in Elijah’s day. The remnant is the elect, and the elect are those chosen by grace, not by their works.
    • Israel as a whole did not obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened(some versions say blinded). Paul is among the elect Jews. Remember, he starts Romans by describing himself in these terms, as being “set apart for the gospel of God.” The elect are believers, set apart the same way Paul was.
• Verse 8
  • Paul continues describing this fascinating and often overlooked attribute of God, that is, His sovereignty! God’s free will is what matters MOST. Not that we don’t have any free will, we do, but we lost most of it at the Fall, as a result of the curse. This is why God must choose us, we can’t choose Him. Adam and Eve had actual free will, but they lost it at the fall and they and the ground were cursed because of their disobedience. This is why now, Paul can say “none are righteous” (Romans 3:10).
    • We have discussed before how we humans make so much about our free will, and we forget or ignore that God has ultimate free will. He has the free will to elect, and he has the free will to give people a spirit of stupor. Verse 8 clarifies that it was God who hardened the unbelieving Jews.
    • Verse 8 basically says God made the Jews blind, deaf and dumb. Paul uses Old Testament prophecies and scripture to show God’s will in this (Isaiah 29:10, Deut. 29:4, even Jesus refers to the same thing Paul is referring to here in Matt 13:14, that the gospel would basically go in one ear and out the other).
      • Remember Pharoah. God hardened his heart but Pharoah also hardened his own heart. I think it is the same case here, because when you read Matthew 13, Jesus refers to Isaiah, and talks about how “they” have closed their eyes, etc. 
      • It’s also very awesome how Jesus mentions there were believers before his time on earth, in Matt. 13:17. Jesus describes “many prophets and righteous people” who longed for the day Christ would come so they could see and hear him in person. I think right there, Jesus is showing that it is believers who make up “the tree” we will discuss later in Ch. 11. The Jews are just one branch of the tree of believers.
• Verse 9-10
• Paul now quotes David in Psalm 69:22-23.
• We are back to stumbling stones again, first discussed in Romans 9:32-33. Remember, this is ultimately about believers and unbelievers, and God used the Jews to reveal this. 
• Sproul contrasts the banquet table in Psalm 69 with the table in Psalm 23. He says Luther described the Psalm 23 table as God’s word, which is the one thing, the main thing God entrusted to the Jews, and also the thing the world hated. So right there, “in the presence of his enemies” of Psalm 23, God had given the Jews His oracles, the primary thing about them Paul says in Romans 3:2. And their unfaithfulness does not nullify God’s faithfulness.
• This great table, the Word, is a banquet to feast from for the righteous and a snare and stumbling block for the wicked.
  • At the risk of being called an “antisemite” or “Jew hater,” it is fair to refer to modern forms of Jewish worship as wicked. Over and over, the Bible contrasts the righteous and the wicked. Regarding the Jews, Paul didn’t have “unceasing anguish” (Rom. 9:2) for no reason. He anguished over them because they, like all unbelievers, were wicked. Destined to face God’s wrath and an eternity in Hell.
  • In Romans 10:1, Paul expressed his heart’s desire that “they may be saved.” The modern Jewish religion is a cult. Our heart’s desire should be, like Paul’s, missional in nature. Pray for their salvation. Pray for missionaries to be sent. Maybe one of those missionaries is you!
• Up next, Romans 11:11-24