Thoughts From Romans 9 - Part 1

 I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— 2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.  Rom. 9:1-5

             Whenever I think about the reason that God chose a people, the Jews, to be His chosen people, I come up with three. First it was to bring the Messiah to Earth to save whoever believes and receives him. God needed a lineage to do that through, and He chose the Jews as seen in verse 5. He makes it clear that there wasn't anything special about them, they were just picked for His divine purposes. You might say, "Ha, see that, He picks and chooses whoever He wants which proves predestination." There are going to be a lot of predestination arguments coming up in this passage, but all I would say is this illustrates corporate election here because He picks a group, not individuals.

        Second, He picks a people to bring us His word through. We see the careful recordings by Moses, Joshua, Ezra and others, saved with great care mentioned throughout the Old Testament. Paul talks about the covenants, law, and promises given to them in verse 4. To those who might downgrade the importance of the Old Testament to today's believers, Paul doesn't at all in Chapter 9.

          Lastly, God chose a group to reveal his glory, power, and majesty to the world through. Rahab in Jericho discusses how non-Jews saw Jehovah and their fear of Him. The Gibeonites tricked Joshua into a treaty because they knew that Jehovah was God. Also, we see Pharoah later in Chapter 9 was the example of when you stand in defiance of the God of Israel.

          Unfortunately, most Jews now have rejected His Son and in turn rejected Him and Paul realizing this pleads with them to repent. He says he would even trade his place in the kingdom for a national acceptance of the Messiah. I wouldn't even joke about my soul's salvation but that's how passionate he was for them. How passionate are you for the lost?