“The Beloved People of God,” Romans 9:22-33

If Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises to the Jewish people, then why do the majority of Jewish people reject Jesus as their Messiah?

Does Israel’s rejection of Jesus cast doubt on God’s plan, i.e., does Israel’s refusal to believe in Jesus indicate that God’s promises won’t come to fruition? Paul says, “No, God’s promises will be fulfilled!”

Paul explains that there is a remnant of Jews who have now, and will in the future, receive God’s favor. But for now, the nation of Israel is in the background, prophetically, and the Christian Church is front and center; but of course all that will change, when the Church is removed, just before the rise of the Antichrist.

We recently studied how God has, in the past, selected people to fulfill His purposes: God chose Abraham out of all the people on the earth; God chose Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau; He chose Israel over all the other nations, and now, in these last days, He has called and set apart the Church, for His purpose.

If you weren’t here last week, you need to go to our website (fbcwaldport.org), where you can read, listen to, or download last week’s lesson from Romans 9:14-21; there was much covered in that section, that will help you more fully understand God's sovereign selection vs man's sinful response to God.

A careful reading of Romans 9 reveals Paul’s theology; that he is not talking about God’s selection of individual men and women for heaven or hell, but as offspring through whom the seed (Genesis 3:15, the promised Messiah) would come.

God selected through the line of Israel to present salvation to the world. That doesn’t mean that every Jewish person was saved simply because they were Israelites, nor does it mean that every Ishmaelite was dammed simply because they weren’t Israelites. Let me say that another way - no Jewish person is saved simply because they are an Israelite, and no Ishmaelite is dammed simply because they weren’t an Israelite.

Now that Messiah has come, the boundaries of election and God’s favor have been opened up far beyond Israel, to include all Gentiles who will respond to the message of Christ, that’s us. Everyone, anyone, who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, because salvation comes only through Jesus Christ (Acts 2:21; 4:12); in fact (Acts 10:34-35), “God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear Him and do what is right.”

See Romans 9:22-24... This is amazing! God can take the rejection and even the evil actions of unrepentant sinners and use them to work good for those who love God, those who are the objects of His love and mercy. Of whom is this talking about?

Verse 24, “even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles.”

Up to this point Paul has been speaking in suppositions and hyperbole, but now he speaks clearly by saying "even us,” i.e., Paul and his readers (both Jew and Gentile), were some of the objects called by God, recipients of God’s love.

The point here is that God's call was manifested not only to the Jews, through their ancestral line (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob), but also to Paul's generation, and to ours.

God’s grace reaches throughout history to the remotest corners of the world, and God makes no distinctions based on race, ethnicity, nationality, wealth, intelligence, morality, or religious practice.

God calls human beings indiscriminately, whether Gentiles or Jews. This was revolutionary teaching, for up to this point in Romans Paul has made the case that God only selected specific lineages for blessing, from within Abraham’s offspring; but then (Galatians 3:29), “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

In order to show that the Gentile’s inclusion into God’s favor wasn’t conjured up after the Jews rejected Jesus, Paul quotes from Old Testament here.

Romans 9:25-29... First (v.25, Hosea 2:23), As He says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one.” (v. 26, Hosea 1:10), “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

These verses foretell and proclaim the calling of the Gentiles, some 700 years before Jesus' birth. Paul is clearly applying Hosea’s prophecy to the Gentiles, to us. But Paul doesn’t stop there, he doesn’t presume that the inclusion of the Gentiles was somehow at the expense or exclusion of Israel.

The “called ones” (v. 24) is more fully explained: 27 “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel (Isaiah 10:22-23): ‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. 28 For the Lord will carry out His sentence [execute His Word] on earth with speed and finality [thoroughly and expediently].’

29 It is just as Isaiah said previously (Isaiah 1:9) ‘Unless the Lord Almighty [Lord of Sabaoth or Hosts] had left us descendants [a posterity], we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like [resembled] Gomorrah.’”

These quotations from Old Testament prophets declare that God's calling has always resulted in the response of a faithful remnant (a small group or minority from within).

No matter how large Israel was, or may become, in population, verse 27 says Isaiah foretold that only a small number of Israel would respond to God's Messiah.

Israel spent 400 years in silence, before Jesus came -no word or prophet from God- because they had abandoned their worship of God, had defiled the Temple’s sacrificial system, and were intermarrying with pagan cultures; and yet, God did not permanently cast them away, but instead, He promised to save a remnant as His beloved people.

Paul took the Gospel of Christ to the Jews first, even so, most of Israel rejected the message he brought about the Messiah. Paul says (v. 29), if a remnant had not been prepared and spared by God, Israel would have ceased to exist, wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah.

There is a present remnant of Israel (Messianic Jews), and there will be a future remnant, during the Tribulation Revelation 7:4, when 144,000 sons of Israel are sealed by God) is God’s way of saying He isn’t done with them yet.

There are essentially only two groups of people in the world, as far as God is concerned: those who belong to Him and those who don’t, made up of both Jews and Gentiles, called to be the people of God, through the finished work of the Son of God.

Only a remnant of Jews will be called God’s Beloved, because only a remnant will believe in Christ. While comparing the nation of Israel who’ve mostly rejected Jesus with the number of non-Jewish people who’ve believed in Christ, Paul presents the requirement that the Jews had failed to meet.

See Romans 9:30-32... Righteousness is a right standing, a reconciled or redeemed relationship with God, a relationship of intimacy and love where the things that once separated us from God have been removed.

We (Gentiles) who were not a people, have become His people, the beloved of God (Titus 2:13b-14), “God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ...gave Himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for Himself a people that are His very own, eager to do what is good,” (Ephesians 2:10), “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Paul says (Romans 9:30-31), that Gentiles have obtained a righteousness that comes by faith, whereas Israel pursued a righteousness through the Law, and therefore did not obtain a righteousness from God.

Paul isn’t faulting Israel for pursuing the law. He’s faulting them ( verse 32) for pursuing the law on the basis of earning favor with God, rather than by faith; this was a “stumbling stone” to the Jews.

God’s law isn’t the problem, Israel’s idolizing of law keeping is. Instead of seeing the Ten Commandments as God’s instrument to expose their sin and lead them to

Christ, by faith, the majority of the Jews considered adherence to the law and ritual keeping, the means by which they obtained righteousness.

This pursuit of law-keeping to obtain righteousness caused Israel to stumble (Romans 3:10-12; 21-24).

The Gentiles didn’t have this problem, because they didn’t have the Ten Commandments, or the covenants, or the sacrificial system, to trip them up; it was easier for the Gentiles to accept that a right relationship with God came, not as the result of rituals or law keeping, but by believing and receiving, by faith, what Christ had done for them, to make them righteous before God.

Now, see Romans 9:33... The "stumbling stone" is clearly a person, it says “Him,” because this is talking about Jesus Christ, the One who fulfills all the law; in fact He supersedes the law, for He is the Only way to an intimate and eternal relationship with God.

Paul quotes here from Isaiah 28:16, which says God would lay a stone in Jerusalem that would cause the Jews to stumble, those who trust in this “Stone” will never fall.

Here we find the requirement for all those who will be called God’s Beloved, for God’s grace receives all people on the basis of their FAITH in Christ ALONE.

No one can earn the right to receive God’s love, for it is by grace through faith. God’s love is not based on a person’s goodness, or worthiness, or race, or religion, for no one deserves or can earn God’s love, because it is not about earning or deserving, it is about God’s unconditional mercy and compassion toward His creation.

The nation of Israel used the Law as a way to earn favor with God, but the purpose of the Law was to lead them to Christ; He fulfilled the Law. Israel tried to earn favor with God by law-keeping, unfortunately, this is what kept them from recognizing their need for forgiveness that could only be granted by the Savior.

Genuine faith admits there is nothing you can do, and no way you can earn a right relationship with God. Faith hopes for what can’t be seen, obtained, or taken hold of (Hebrews 11:1), “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

So, who are those called according to God’s purpose, to become the beloved of God? Both Jew and Gentile, all who’ve responded to God’s call by faith in the finished work of Christ, are the Beloved of God, because the Righteous One, God’s Son, died in our place, taking our punishment.

Only the good news of Jesus Christ, having been believed and received, can genuinely and completely change a human life for eternity.

No wonder Paul says (Romans 1:16-17), “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for

the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

What does a community of God’s people look like? We have an illustration in Revelation 7:9, where there is a multitude “from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb,” all worshipping God.

Here at FBC we strive to love one another and to reach out to our neighbors; although we do often fail by excluding one another, sometimes forming "in groups" and "out groups,” and sometimes we carry around our pet peeves, biases, dislikes, and even hurts, with us, dishonoring God while offending or injuring one another.

God is so patient with us, so merciful and gracious: no amount of sinning can make God love us less and no amount of good works can make God love us more, because in Christ, we are the Beloved People of God.

1Peter 2:4-12, “As you come to Him, the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him-- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.’ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,’ and, ‘A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans [unbelievers] that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

1Peter 3:15-18b, “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. ...For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.”