Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Romans Ch 9
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
So you and I make a choice, and it's either this or that. But for Paul, God's choosing was never this or that. It was only ever this, and now this, and now this, and you, and now you, and you. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome to commons. If you and I haven't met yet, my name is Jeremy, and I'm part of the team here at the church. And thanks for being here with us today on a really cold day.
Speaker 1:We really don't take it for granted that you would come and spend part of your weekend to worship with us. Last week, we started back into a new series. It's new because we're starting Romans again for this year, but we're back because we are continuing on from where we left off last year. And today, we move into some new material with chapters nine through 12 on the schedule for this year. If you're interested, then you're more than welcome to jump online and backtrack through the earlier series that are part of this where we covered chapters one through eight in more detail.
Speaker 1:They're available at commons.church. There's a watch online button at the top. If you click that, that'll find all the links. But last week, we got our feet under us again as we spent some time with the story of Paul, and we covered a lot of material here in the background. In particular, we looked at some of the major schools of thought and interpretation when it comes to Pauline literature.
Speaker 1:And I try to do that quickly because let's be honest, I know that not everyone here is interested in nineteenth century German theology, at least the way that I am. But here's the thing, you guys kind of are. Because a lot of people were really intrigued by this, which is great. It means I'm not the only nerd in the room on a Sunday. And so what I did was I put together a little longer explanation of some of these schools of thought, when it comes to Paul, and I posted that to our YouTube channel this week.
Speaker 1:It's about fifteen minutes long. But if you wanna hear some of the major figures behind each of these different schools, to Paul, then you can jump online and find that at youtube.com/commonschurch. But here's why that discussion is important. Because we're all dealing with the same scripture and we're all reading the same letters of Paul, but the story we imagine behind those words, who we imagine Paul to be and what we imagine Paul's world to be like is gonna shape how we hear what he says. My son is really into Star Wars right now.
Speaker 1:But this week he said to me, dad, I love Star Wars. I wish I was just a little Darth Vader. And I tried to correct him and say, actually it's Darth Vader, but he said to me, dad, that's not even a word. Anyway, says to me, dad, I really love Star Wars. I wish I was a little Darth Vader and you were Snoke and mom was a stormtrooper.
Speaker 1:And I thought, that's great because I love Star Wars too, but clearly, you obviously do not understand the narrative behind these stories. And I know that talking about something like the new perspective on Paul can seem secondary to actually just reading Romans, but this is exactly why schools of interpretation are really important. Because understanding the story behind the letter, not just what Paul says, but why Paul says it, is deeply going to shape how you hear and understand and make sense of his message about Jesus in a book like Romans. Peter and Paul are not at war. Paul is not trying to make Judaism more palatable to Romans.
Speaker 1:Paul is trying to make sense of the fact that he believes Jesus has invited everyone, all peoples now to the table of God. And that has changed everything for him, and the only thing that matters now is the gift of God through the faithfulness of Jesus. Now today, move into Romans nine, and it's gonna get heavy again. So let's pray before we dive back in. Good and great God who takes us from the cradle of creation to the heirs of heaven, who loves without ceasing, who gives without tiring, whose grace is both unstoppable and unlimited.
Speaker 1:Might we read with soft hearts today. Might we hear across time and space today. Might we recognize words that were written for a very different audience and yet encounter a heart that transcends that moment to remind us of your goodness. May we believe that you have chosen us and that all are now welcome to choose you back. In the strong name, the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Okay. Today, we have mood swings, bad theology, foreign conversations, and what sovereignty is really all about for Paul. But as we start some new material today, to show you where we are today, I wanna read you the end of chapter eight and then the first couple verses of chapter nine. So here's what Paul says at the end of chapter eight where we left off last year.
Speaker 1:For we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. And I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons, neither present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now, that's the last three verses of chapter eight, and that's some pretty good stuff. This is Paul at sort of the height of his rhetorical prowess, and there's these great little flourishes he throws in there. I mean, if you were having a down day and you read this, that would pick you up.
Speaker 1:Am I right? A great place to end off last year. And yet, this is where we start this year. In the very next verse Paul writes, I speak the truth in Christ. I am not lying.
Speaker 1:And by the way, as a new parent, I've become immediately suspect of any conversation that starts with, I'm not lying. Anyway, he continues. As I'm not lying, my conscience confirms it through the holy spirit. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart for I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those in my own race, the people of Israel. Now, as you know, I live with a five year old in my house.
Speaker 1:And so this type of manic swing from pure ecstasy to unceasing sorrow is actually pretty common in our house. It happened yesterday actually, perhaps in yours as well. But there's actually a lot going on here and more than just a tone shift. Paul is gonna move in a completely different direction now for chapters nine to 11. And for this reason, over the years, a lot of people have wondered about whether this section was inserted later on.
Speaker 1:Now it's very certainly Pauline. And so the debate has never really been about whether someone else wrote it, just that perhaps the sections of the letter got mixed up, or maybe Paul wrote this section later and it got added into the letter at some point. All that's possible, but I don't actually think that's necessarily what happened. In chapter eight, Paul is talking about this incredible joy he's found in recognizing that all peoples everywhere have been welcomed into the story of God. He talks about his non Jewish friends being grafted into the family of God.
Speaker 1:But now in chapter nine, he turns his attention to his people. The Jewish people who he sees as just not really getting Jesus' message, and that evokes a different set of emotions for him. Yes. The shift is dramatic, but it's also not unbelievable for me. Because I think joy can often open us up to really deep sorrow.
Speaker 1:Don't know if this resonates for you, but as someone who is often a little bit closed off from his emotions, What I found is that when something breaks through, be that joy or excitement or sorrow or pain, what happens is that I often find myself in a more vulnerable space where I'm able to acknowledge emotions that I might not otherwise be able to. This is actually a pretty well known reality. If you've ever seen a romantic comedy, the whole premise of the movie is that if they can get you laughing, they can get you feeling. If you've ever seen a Pixar movie, the whole idea is that if we can get you to enjoy yourself, well, then we can make you cry. Listen, those of us that communicate for a living, we know this.
Speaker 1:I throw in a few jokes. I tell you a story about eating. Even if I can't get you to laugh, I get you to smile. We develop some rapport. And hopefully, when the time comes to bring it all home, then you're willing to go with me on that journey as well.
Speaker 1:Right? So we can joke about Paul having mood swings like a five year old, but what I would say about this is that when you find yourself in the throes of conflicting emotions, understand that this is beautiful. And that when you are filled with joy and you remember someone that you've lost, don't despise that contradiction. Embrace it. Own it.
Speaker 1:Don't let it steal your joy from you, but recognize that this is part of what it means to be human. Because we spend so much of our grown up lives learning how to stuff emotion down and how to turn it on and off when we need to. And honestly, sometimes that's a necessary skill in order to function in society. We can't all be five year olds all the time. But when one emotion gets the best of you, and then all of a sudden, all of them come pouring out, sometimes that's a feature, not a bug.
Speaker 1:And it's reminding you that your emotions weren't meant to be managed as tightly as they often are. And so particularly those emotions that you find catching you off guard, that can be a sign that those are feelings that haven't been given enough voice in your life. So, no, it doesn't surprise me that Paul can be overwhelmed with joy in one moment and then sick with grief in the next. Because honestly, that's how I actually experience the world when I let my guard down. And I think that juxtaposition is actually really helpful in reminding us of the beauty of feeling fully.
Speaker 1:Now that aside, let's look at Paul's arguments in this chapter and why he has these deep emotions. Because there's a couple points that Paul wants to make here. But notice in verse four that Paul says, I wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Now all through the first eight chapters of Romans, Paul has used the terms Jew and Gentile. Here in chapter nine and through the end of this section in chapter 11, Paul switches to using Israel exclusively.
Speaker 1:And the reason for that is this is an internal conversation. Jew and Gentile are generic terms that Romans would have used, But the people of Israel or Israelites, these are terms that Jewish people exclusively would use to describe themselves. Remember, as far as Rome is concerned, there is no such thing as an Israelite. Israel is gone. And that's fine if you consider yourself Jewish, but don't kid yourself.
Speaker 1:Your nation is conquered and it's not coming back. So right from the start with the shift in language, Paul is signaling that for the next few chapters at least, we are listening in on a conversation that doesn't involve us. And that's really important because Paul is gonna make an argument about who the real Israelites are. The Israelites who trust God and not just the Israelites who claim their ethnic identity. And one of the unfortunate things that has happened historically out of this is that non Jewish Christians have picked up on this language and started saying, oh, see, we are the root new Israelites now.
Speaker 1:The church and Christians have replaced the Jewish people in God's imagination. This is called supersessionism. Sometimes it's even called replacement theology, but it has given birth to all kinds of antisemitic tropes within Christianity. The Jews had their chance and they blew it. Now, it's all about us.
Speaker 1:Martin Luther, who led the Protestant Reformation, did some great stuff, also wrote some really antisemitic stuff along these lines later in his life. And first of all, super racist to think that God would ever write off an entire ethnic group and replace them. But second, it recreates the dichotomy that Paul is working so hard to dissolve in this letter to the Romans. It sets up the Jewish people as the antagonists for Christianity. And that happens in all kinds of more subtle ways.
Speaker 1:For example, have you ever heard someone use the term pharisee as a synonym for hypocrite? Well, that's super offensive to the rabbi who lives down the street because the rabbinical movement comes directly out of the pharisaical movement, and most rabbis that you will meet here in the city will consider themselves to be part of the pharisaical tradition. Now I've done a ton of interfaith dialogues, and every rabbi I have ever met is very happy to debate and talk about our differences in theology. But if I start using their tradition as a shorthand for hypocrite, one, it shows my lack of understanding, and two, it actually makes dialogue pretty difficult to maintain. Right?
Speaker 1:And look, I understand. Most of us don't talk that way with a malicious intent, but we need to be aware of how our words are being heard by others. And the thing is, if we don't recognize that Paul isn't talking to us here and we start appropriating his language uncritically, we can find ourselves going down some really unhelpful paths. Paul is a Jewish person speaking to Jewish people, and those of us on the outside need to keep that in mind as we read what he's saying here. So what is Paul saying to his people?
Speaker 1:Well, he starts off by listing all the privileges that have been afforded to the Israelites. Says they are the children of God. They experience the divine glory. They were given the law. They have the temple worship and the promises to Israel.
Speaker 1:They have the patriarchs, and they are the human ancestry of the Messiah. Even God's self belongs to Israel in some sense, all in order that God be praised forever. Amen. And so Paul starts by recounting all of the ways that his people have been incredibly blessed. And this is precisely why he is so disheartened to see that Jews like himself missing what he sees is the heart of God now expressed in Jesus.
Speaker 1:And this is where he makes an argument about the true Israel. In verse six he says, it is not as though God's word had failed, for not all who are descended from Israel are Israel, nor because they are his descendants are all Abraham's children. In other words, it might seem like if God has done all of this for Israel and they're not getting it, then God failed. But Paul says, no. It's not how it works.
Speaker 1:And here's his logic. He's gonna give two examples here. He quotes Genesis 21, which says, it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. And then he quotes from Malachi one, which says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. Now both of those are gonna take a bit of explanation.
Speaker 1:What's going on here is that Paul is playing off the fact that the God of Israel is also known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And if we start with Abraham, we have to acknowledge that Isaac was not his only son. Abraham had a first son, Ishmael, through Hagar, and he had six more sons with Keturah. Isaac, however, was the promised son that came to Abraham and Sarah. And if we follow that story, find that Isaac also had two sons, but this only reinforces Paul's point because Jacob and Esau were actually twins.
Speaker 1:So they both had the same father and they had the same mother and yet still the story of Israel came through Jacob. Now, the phrase Jacob I love and Esau I hated, that's a tough one to swallow. Does God really hate some people? Well, the short answer is no, but the long answer needs some context. That line comes from Malachi.
Speaker 1:It does not come from Genesis. And so it's actually from one of the minor prophets and it comes from centuries after Jacob and Esau lived. And that's because it's actually not talking about Jacob and Esau who were both blessed by God. We did that story two years ago. You can find it online.
Speaker 1:Malachi is actually talking about tensions rising between Israel, the descendants of Jacob, and the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. And so the passage in Malachi is about that conflict between people groups. Even this love hate dichotomy is what we call a Hebraism. It's a poetic device that's describing the different paths that people have taken, that Israel has leaned into God, and Edom has leaned away. So it's not saying that God literally hates some people.
Speaker 1:And the thing is Paul knows all of this. And that actually supports his argument. Because what he's saying here is that Jewish identity has never actually been as simple as being born into the club. It's always been somehow this mysterious gift of God. As we talked about last week, Jews never saw themselves as earning their place in God's heart by doing good things.
Speaker 1:Well, now Paul says, actually, we never saw ourselves as earning our place in God's heart through our birth. We always saw that as somehow this mysterious gift in choosing of God. Came through Isaac, not Ishmael, through Jacob, not Esau, and somehow the divine always had a plan and it led us to here. So this is not an argument about anyone being replaced. This is a Jewish person making a Jewish argument to other Jewish people that their shared Jewish identity has always been more about the gift of God than anything else.
Speaker 1:And our first instinct is say, okay. Great. But that doesn't really sound fair. And Paul knows this, and Paul's going to address this. But he's gonna do it in two ways that are both really important.
Speaker 1:First, his appeal is a sovereign or an appeal to the sovereignty of God. He writes this. What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all.
Speaker 1:For God says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. Now, if you remember a couple of years ago, we came across this phrase, not at all in Paul. It's in Greek. And if you remember, we talked about how this might be better translated something like, oh hell no.
Speaker 1:Well, that's where Paul goes again this week. He absolutely does not countenance the idea of an unjust God. But his argument here is gonna be, well, God can do what God wants to do. That doesn't sound very helpful. But we're gonna have to dig in a little bit more here because there's a lot of nuance that we might not see or assume on first glance.
Speaker 1:Paul says, here's an example. Scripture says to pharaoh, I raised you up for this purpose that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. Therefore, God has mercy on whom God has mercy and God hardens those whom God wants to harden. And this story of God hardening Pharaoh's heart is an incredibly difficult story. It's one that rabbis had wrestled with and wondered about and debated over for centuries.
Speaker 1:Because in Exodus, the story is that God wants to create this massive social change by freeing the Hebrew slaves. And there are actually 20 references in the story to hearts being hardened to this idea. In exactly half of them, God is the one who does the hardening. And in exactly the other half, it is Pharaoh and his people who harden themselves against the idea of God's justice. And so I'll quote here from one of the preeminent Jewish scholars of Exodus, Nehum Sarnah, who says, the hardening of heart motif expresses a state of arrogant moral degeneracy, increasingly unresponsive to reason, and slowly becoming incapable of compassion.
Speaker 1:Pharaoh's personal culpability is the point of the story. Our point being that in Jewish thought, this story is not a story about God making pharaoh do bad things. And Paul knows that and Paul's using that. Because what Paul wants to say here is that once God's mind is set on moving forward, there is nothing that you or I can do to derail that. Now we can get in the way of it.
Speaker 1:We can walk away from it. We can actively try to mess with it, but it doesn't matter if you are as powerful as pharaoh. That's for the Jews. Gentiles, if you're listening in, it doesn't matter if you're as powerful as Caesar. You simply cannot stop God's goodness from moving forward in the world.
Speaker 1:Paul's point isn't that God makes people do bad things. Paul's point is no matter how powerful you are or how bad your things are, you can't change or stop the divine plan. That's what the sovereignty of God is all about for Paul. God is goodness, and nothing you can do can ever possibly change that. In fact, Paul already made an argument in chapter one of Romans that if you try to oppose God's goodness, God's judgment will be letting you oppose goodness.
Speaker 1:That's exactly what the story of pharaoh was about. And so with that as his base, Paul is now gonna push this idea as far as he possibly can and it's going to get heated. Now let's stick with it here. He says, what if God, although choosing to show God's wrath and make God's power known, bore with great patience the objects of that wrath prepared for destruction? So notice Paul's talking in hypotheticals here.
Speaker 1:Right? He's trying to work some things out for himself. But he says and he continues, he says, and what if God did all this to make the riches of glory known to the objects of God's mercy? Whom God prepared in advance for glory, even us whom God also called not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles. Now the argument here sometimes has been, well, see, God makes some people to burn and others to bless, and that's just God's prerogative.
Speaker 1:Except that if we're paying attention to the fact that Paul has brought pharaoh into the discussion, and if we've been reading Romans for say four years already and we know that the objects of God's wrath that Paul talks about are never you and I, but instead what tears at God's creation. Remember Romans one eighteen, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the godlessness and wickedness of people. God's anger is directed not at us but at what hurts us. That's precisely so that the riches of God's glory and grace can be named known to the objects of God's mercy which Paul now says explicitly are us. God's wrath is directed at what hurts us.
Speaker 1:God's compassion is pointed toward us. And the point Paul wants to get to is that this us is now drawn not only from the Jews, but also now from all peoples everywhere. And so there's nothing here in Paul's language about leaving the Jews behind or replacing them. And this is the second thing that we really need to keep in mind when we hear Paul talk about something like God's sovereignty and God's choosing to love those whom God chooses to love. Because Paul here is not talking about you or me or this person or that person.
Speaker 1:Paul is talking about people groups. See, Paul does not live in this hyper individualized world that we do. Paul lives in a very communal world where shared identity is central, where his focus is not exclusively on what you as a particular person do to either earn your place in or out of God's grace. Of course, he realizes individuals can walk away and they can reject God. We'll look at that more next week.
Speaker 1:But Paul's focus here is on God's choosing of us together. And his big argument is that God chose the Jewish people to work through. And now God, as God has always promised to do, is choosing all peoples to welcome into that same story. You see, there's no replacement in Paul's imagination because there's no conflict in Paul's mind because God's choosing isn't limited like ours. So you and I make a choice, and it's either this or that.
Speaker 1:But for Paul, God's choosing was never this or that. It was only ever this and now this and now this and you, and now you, and you. And for Paul, God's choosing only ever gets bigger with Jesus. And for those of us who are now caught up in this story, this becomes incredibly important for us to internalize. And for God to choose us says nothing about who God has to leave out.
Speaker 1:As we talked about last week, in Christ, love is not a limited commodity. And our trust, our faith is in the fact that God can choose and choose and choose some more and never run out of room for more choosing. You see, once you see that god's sovereignty is the ability to infinitely choose the good, even in the face of our apathy and opposition, This is then what enables us to trust like Paul that all of the godlessness and the wickedness that we see around us in the world, all of our destruction and our hurt, all of that is what's destined for the scrap heap. One day, everything that hurts us, everything that tears at our humanity and God's creation, everything that separates us from each other and causes us to lose sight of the love that sits at the center of the universe. All of our shame and our walls, all of our barriers will fade and only then what is healed and repaired and made new will remain.
Speaker 1:Because God is infinite unstoppable love. And that is the sovereignty that Paul believes in completely. And this is why Paul feels intense sorrow for those who miss their intrinsic value. Those who don't yet know themselves as completely and fully loved. Those who see others as unworthy of divine compassion.
Speaker 1:Paul feels sorrow for us when we're caught in that story because when we think that God is limited like us and God's choosing is this or that, we miss the beauty of a sovereign love that sits at the center of the universe and just keeps choosing to love. So may you know today everything that hurts you is temporary. So that you can trust that what loves you is always infinite. May you then demonstrate the unstoppable grace that sits at the core of all things by the way that you engage with those who are loved. Believing that the sovereignty of God is the sovereignty of love.
Speaker 1:And that in the end, love wins. Let's pray. God, as we wrestle through these very complex arguments that Paul is making. As his world is turned upside down and shifted by the incredible story of your grace and unstoppable love. Why don't you realize that your choice is not limited like ours?
Speaker 1:And that for you, the choice is never this or that. It's only ever this and now this. And once we allow that to infect us and sink somewhere deep into us, might that be the way that we live in the world, with generosity and grace. Recognizing that the more that we choose and the more that we give and the more that we love, the more that we are in touch with the source of everything in the universe. That love is not a limited commodity.
Speaker 1:It does not run out. And the more that we can live from that story, the more filled up we will be. God help us to believe that we are fully loved and chosen right now. And may that be the story through which we enter into our week. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen.