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Romans Chapter 9

Romans Chapter 9

(Tap footnote to read it.  Old Testament quotations are underlined.  "Love" with a caret ("^love") is agapé.1"agapé" The Greek words ἀγάπη (agapé, noun), and ἀγαπάω (agapaó; verb) are typically translated "love".  However, unlike our English word "love" – which primarily speaks of affection and feelings – agapé centers on choice and behavior.  It’s the "love" based on will, choice, behavior, and action; not feelings.  (Feelings-based love is the Greek word φιλέω (phileó), which properly means "brotherly love/affection".)  Thus, you could hate someone passionately and still treat him with "agapé".  Agapé "love" is best understood as the pursuit of what is most beneficial to someone or something, regardless of the cost to yourself or the type of response received from the person or thing.  It can also indicate a preference for someone or something over other things. )

Concern for Jews
  1. I speak the truth in the Anointed.  I don’t lie; my conscience is testifying with me in the Holy Spirit
  2. that my grief is great and unceasing anguish is in my heart.
  3. For I was wishing myself to be anathema1“anathema” likely because of the Bible, this Greek word has entered the English vocabulary.  In Greek it literally means to curse someone, or more specifically to offer a curse to them to devote them to God’ destruction.  It can also have the connotation of being abominable and/or detestable. – separated from the Anointed – for the sake of my brothers; my kinsmen according to the flesh,
  4. who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the Mosaic legislation, and the sacred service, and the promises;
  5. to whom belong the forefathers, and from whom came the Anointed according to the flesh; the One who is God over all and blessed through the ages, Amen.
  6. But it’s not as though the word of God has failed, for not all the men of Israel are these men of Israel.
  7. Nor are all children because they’re Abraham’s seed, but “In Isaac your seed will be called.”2quotation/allusion to Genesis 21:12
  8. That is, it’s not these children of the flesh who are children of God; but the children of the promise are considered to be seed.
  9. For the word of promise was this: “At this time, I will come and there will be a son through Sarah.”3quotation/allusion to Genesis 18:10
  10. And not only that, but also Rebecca having her conception by one man, Isaac our father.
  11. For while not yet having been born nor having done anything good or evil – so the purpose of God in regard to His elect might remain not from works, but from the One calling them –
  12. it was said to her: “The older will serve the younger.”4quotation/allusion to Genesis 25:23
  13. Just as it is *written: “Jacob I ^loved, but Esau I hated.”5quotation/allusion to Malachi 1:2
The Potter and the Clay
  1. Then what will we say?  There isn’t injustice with God, is there?  May it never be!
  2. For He says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”6quotation/allusion to Exodus 33:15
  3. So then it’s not from the man desiring nor the man running, but from God having mercy.
  4. For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, so that I might demonstrate My power in you, and so that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”7quotation/allusion to Exodus 9:16
  5. So then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires.
  6. Therefore you will say to me: “Then why does He still find fault?  For who has resisted His will?”
  7. On the contrary O man, who are you?  The man contradicting God?  The thing that’s molded won’t say to the One who molded it: “Why did you make me this way?”, will it?
  8. Or doesn’t the potter have authority over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
  9. And what if God – desiring to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known – bore in much patience the vessels of wrath *fit for destruction?
  10. And so He might make known the wealth of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,
  11. whom He also called us, not only from the Jews, but also from the gentiles.
  12. Just as He also says in Hosea: “I will call the man who isn’t My people, My people; and the woman who hasn’t been ^loved, the woman who has been ^loved.”8quotation/allusion to Hosea 2:23
  13. And: “it will be in the place where it was said to them, “you aren’t My people”, there they will be called sons of the living God.” 9quotation/allusion to Hosea 1:10
  14. Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel might be as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
  15. “For the Lord will do His word; fulfilling and swiftly executing it upon the land.”10quotation/allusion to Isaiah 10:22
  16. And as Isaiah has foretold: “Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we would’ve become like Sodom and we would’ve been made like Gomorrah.” 11quotation/allusion to Isaiah 1:9
  17. Then what will we say?  That the gentiles not pursuing righteousness attained righteousness?  (And I mean the righteousness from faith)
  18. But Israel pursuing a law of righteousness didn’t attain to that law?
  19. Why?  Because it wasn’t from faith but as from works, they stumbled over the stone of stumbling,
  20. just as it is *written: “Behold, I place a stone of stumbling in Zion, and a rock of offense.  And the man believing on Him won’t be put to shame.” 12quotation/allusion to Isaiah 28:16

 

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