Romans chapter 9 verses 24 through 26. Extending mercy to the Gentiles, verse 24. Even us, whom he has called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As we have previously said, throughout this whole discussion in chapter 9, and throughout his great argument, Paul has been primarily addressing the issues pertaining to the Jews and Gentiles. He keeps reminding us of that fact throughout his entire argument.
So although much of what Paul says in chapter 9 can be applied to individual salvation, this was not Paul's primary purpose for making these arguments. He has been answering his fictional Jewish opponent, who is claiming that God has been unfair to the Jews. This becomes crystal clear when we examine the closing verses of this chapter. Paul now clarifies his example of the potter and the clay.
He tells his opponent that the unbelieving Jews and unbelieving Gentiles have only themselves to blame for their situations. Like Pharaoh, they have prepared themselves to become vessels of wrath because of their own unbelief. In contrast, the Gentiles who have believed, along with the remnant of believing Jews, have allowed themselves to become God's vessels of mercy. If they remain faithful, they will obtain the glory that God has already prepared for them before the world was created. Verses 25 and 26.
As he said also in Hosea," I will call them my people who were not my people, and her beloved, who was not beloved. And it will come to pass that in the place where it was said to them," You are not my people, there they will be called sons of the living God." Through God's grace, the believing Gentiles became vessels of mercy. Chrysostom comments," Who are the ones called not my people?" Plainly, it is the Gentiles. And who are the ones who were not beloved? Once again, the Gentiles.
Nevertheless, the prophet says that they shall become a people, and they will be beloved and become sons of God. Since humans are only saved through God's mercy, God is free to extend His mercy to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. After all, as we have said, when God chose the Israelites as His special people in the days of Moses, it was only due to His mercy toward them. It was not something they deserved. It is no different with the Gentiles.
And Ambrosiaster comments," This is clearly a prediction about the Gentile nations who previously were not the people of God." After obtaining mercy, they have been called the people of God, with the result that the Jews are shamed. Those who earlier were unloved have become beloved and adopted as children, while the Jews have given up that title. And so the people who used not to be called the people of God are now called sons of the living God.
By quoting Hosea, Paul shows that the inclusion of the Gentiles does not represent a change in God's plan. It is something God had purposed from the beginning, and that He foretold many centuries in advance through the prophets. Romans chapter 9 verses 27 through 29. The remnant of Israel, verse 27. Isaiah also cries concerning Israel. Though the number of the children of Israel is as the sand of the sea, a remnant will be saved. The opponent has claimed that God has failed to fulfill His promises to Israel.
However, Paul shows that God foreknew that most of the children of Israel would become hardened and would reject their own Savior. So even though they had been like the sand of the sea in numbers, only a remnant of them would be saved. Yet this in no way negates the promises. Chrysostom comments," Do you see that Isaiah too does not say that all of the Jews are to be saved?
Rather, only those who are worthy shall be saved." He mentions the sand of the sea for a reason, to remind them of the ancient promise of which they had made themselves unworthy. Why then are the Jews troubled as though the promise has failed? For all the prophets showed that it was not every Israelite who would be saved.
Origen adds," Indeed, the prophet foreseeing the future recognized that the majority of Israel would become vessels of wrath prepared for destruction." This was especially true of those he compared to the sand of the sea. This was due to their own hardened and unrepentant hearts. For they did not believe in order to preserve their lives. Instead, they crucified the Lord of Majesty. Isaiah says that although they were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant would be saved.
Ambrosiaster writes," Isaiah was crying out on behalf of those who would have faith in Christ." These are the ones who constitute the true Israel. Jesus said about Nathanael. See, a genuine Israelite in whom there is no deceit, John 1:47. So out of that great multitude, the only ones who would be saved are those whom God foreknew would believe. Verse 28," For He will finish His Word and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short word upon the earth." He will finish His Word.
The King James Version translates this clause as" He will finish the work." It further says," A short work will the Lord make upon the earth." However, in both places, Paul uses the Greek word" Logos," which means" word, not work." Prior to the King James Version, all English translations, including the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva, and Douay-Rheims, properly translated this verse with the term" word" in both places. So, it is inexplicable why the King James translators changed the term word to work.
Perhaps they thought it made more sense. However, Paul is quoting from Isaiah chapter 10 verse 23 from the Septuagint, which likewise uses Logos, word." The Lord will make a short word upon the earth." What is the short word Isaiah speaks about? Theodoret answers," Faith is what he calls the short word." For confession in Christ accomplishes what the law taught through many commandments. This short confession generates faith. In contrast, the lengthy law was unable to bring complete salvation.
Irenaeus explains further: Isaiah speaks of a word that will be brief and short in righteousness. He says that God will make a short word upon the whole earth. This means that men will not be saved through the verbosity of the law. Rather, they will be saved by the short word of faith in love.
In accordance with this, the apostle Paul says," Love is the fulfillment of the law, and he who loves God has fulfilled the law." Moreover, when the Lord was asked," Which is the first commandment?" He said," You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets, Matthew 22: 37:40. Accordingly, God has made a short word on the earth.
So what does it mean that God will finish His Word and cut it short in righteousness? It means that God will bring the Mosaic Law to completion and cut it short by introducing the gospel. The gospel message is much shorter than that of the law, and the gospel contains only a fraction of the number of commandments, as does the law. Romans chapter 9:29. And as Isaiah said before, unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.
Lord of Sabaoth, in most English Bibles, Sabaoth, a Hebrew word, is appropriately left untranslated. The reason this is fitting is that Paul is quoting this passage of Isaiah from the Septuagint, and the translators of the Septuagint likewise chose to leave Sabaoth untranslated. They evidently saw the expression" Lord of Sabaoth" as a special title for God.
Sabaoth literally means" armies" or" military hosts." Following the example of the Septuagint, Paul left this word untranslated:" Had left us a seed." God left Israel a seed in two different ways. First, He left a remnant of believing Jews, which constitutes such a seed. Theodoret writes," Those whom he previously spoke of as a remnant," here he calls a seed. Because of this seed, the prophet declares that the Jews did not suffer the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, for those cities underwent total destruction.
In a second sense, Jesus Himself constitutes this seed. Origen comments, yet it was not without reason that Isaiah referred to what was left behind as a seed. For a seed is sown in the earth, and then it yields abundant fruit. Through this, Isaiah teaches that Christ too had to be sown. That is, he had to be buried in the earth. Thereafter, he would rise to bring forth an abundance, the multitude of the church.
Jesus Himself had said," Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12: 24:" We would have been as Sodom and been made like Gomorrah. God had utterly destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving no survivors. Chrysostom comments," Here he shows another thing that not even the remnant of Jews were saved by their own resources. For unless God had shown great kindness to them and had saved them by faith, those few would have perished too.
They would have met with the fate of Sodom. That is, they would have undergone utter destruction. For the people of Sodom were destroyed root and branch, and they were left without even the slightest remnant. Romans chapter 9 verses 30-33. Israel stumbled over Christ, verse 30 and 31. What will we say then? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness that is of faith.
But Israel, who pursued the Law of Righteousness, has not attained to the Law of Righteousness. During the centuries before Christ, most Gentiles had made no effort to pursue the righteousness of God. Nevertheless, later they found true righteousness in Jesus Christ. In contrast, the Jews pursued the law of righteousness, the Mosaic Law. Yet they did not attain righteousness, for they rejected Christ, the very person to whom the entire law pointed. Matthew 23:23.
Ambrosiaster comments," In ages past, the Gentiles did not pursue righteousness. That is, they did not pursue the law, which testifies to the Creator." However, at the coming of Christ, they discovered a righteousness that surpassed that of the scribes and Pharisees. In short, those who had never sought after the lesser righteousness of the law later found a greater righteousness. In contrast, the Jews were born under the law, and should have benefited from it. Yet instead, they regressed.
Origen adds," It is one thing to pursue something and another thing to possess it instinctively. A person is said to pursue something when he seeks to achieve it by instruction and reading." The Gentiles did not have the law written down on tablets or books. Therefore, they are said not to have pursued righteousness. Nevertheless, they had an innate understanding of righteousness taught to them by natural law. For this reason, then, the righteousness that comes from faith in Christ was not far from them.
Verses 32 and 33. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stone of stumbling. As it is written," Behold, I lay in Zion, a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and whoever believes on him will not be ashamed." They did not seek it by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. The Jews were fixated on the ceremonial, dietary, and other minor regulations of the law.
Ambrosiaster comments," The Jews through envy did not believe in the Savior. They clung to the righteousness that is commanded in the law. That is, to the Sabbaths, circumcision, et cetera. However, they did not attain to the purpose of the law. That is, they did not fulfill the law. For what fulfills the law is to ascend from the law of Moses to faith in Christ. So Paul is not contrasting faith with godly Christian works. For Christian faith and Christian works are fundamentally intertwined.
Rather, Paul is contrasting faith in Christ with the regulatory works of the Mosaic Law. For they stumbled at that stone of stumbling. Jesus was like a rock lying in the road, which an inattentive person might trip over. Origen explains," We speak of a stumbling block," the Greek word" Proskomma," when some type of obstacle is found in the road that hinders the way of someone walking. Theodoret adds," Persons who do not look at their path are apt to stumble. This had been the case with the Jews.
They were so intent on the smallest minutia of the law that they chose not to see the stone foretold by the prophets." And this was even though it had been distinctly predicted that whoever trusted in Him should obtain the greatest blessings will not be ashamed. When people put their faith in something that does not come about, they end up becoming ashamed or embarrassed.
Theodoret writes," For this is what he means by shall not be ashamed." People are ashamed when they place their hopes in something that later disappoints their expectations. However, persons who put their faith in Jesus will never be disappointed, for all His promises will be fulfilled.