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Holy Week resources and reflections

God’s chosen people (August 14, 2016)

UNIFORM LESSON FOR AUGUST 14, 2016
Scripture passage and lesson focus: Romans 9:6-18

Romans 9-11 must have been among of the most difficult chapters in all of Paul’s epistles for him to write. Vexed by the persistent reality that most of his fellow Jews refused to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul turned to the Gentiles, whose response was increasingly positive. But Paul could never abandon his strong personal hope that somehow the gospel would be embraced by more than a few Jews.

Partly to express his own deep longing and also to improve the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the Roman congregations, Paul wrote an extended theological interpretation of what he considered to be key passages of Scripture pertaining to Jews as God’s chosen people.

Paul begins this section of his letter by expressing his own personal anguish: “I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.” He even wishes that he himself might be cut off from Christ if it would mean that his fellow Jews would accept the gospel.

Paul is so deeply disturbed because he knows that the Jewish people have received so many of God’s choicest blessings. Their heritage included being adopted by God, experiencing God’s glorious presence at Sinai, worshipping God in the temple and receiving God’s law and God’s covenant promises. And even more than that, the Jewish tradition extended back to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and culminated in God’s messiah, Jesus. What more could God have done to influence the Jewish people to accept the gospel?

Romans 9:6-9 – God’s promise defines Israel
Paul claims that God’s chosen people, Israel, are not simply all those who were physical descendants of Abraham. Quoting Genesis 22:12, Paul points out that God chose to make a different nation from Abraham’s children with Hagar. God’s chosen people are the progeny of Abraham and his wife Sarah, whose only son, Isaac, was a child promised by God (Genesis 18:14). So Paul concludes that God’s gracious promise, rather than being a physical descendant, is what really defines Israel as God’s chosen people.

Romans 9:10-13 – God’s choice defines Israel
Paul points out that when Isaac’s wife Rebecca gave birth to twin boys, God told her that the younger son would serve the older son (Genesis 25:23). This was God’s choice, Paul argues, even before the twins were born. That confirms that it was God’s choice and not anything these two descendants would do that defined God’s chosen people. God’s choice was contrary to traditional patterns that favored the elder son at the expense of the younger son. Paul adds a new dimension to the Esau/Jacob story by quoting what God said in the prophecy of Malachi: “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”

Romans 9:14-18 – Mercy is God’s choice
Anticipating an objection to his strong assertion that God loved one of Isaac’s sons and not the other, Paul asks if God’s love for Jacob shows that God is unjust. Paul’s answer is a resounding “No!” He goes to Scripture again to make his point. Paul quotes God’s words to Moses recorded in Exodus 33:19: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

Paul wants his readers to understand that it is God’s prerogative to be merciful. Paul quotes Exodus 9:16 where God tells the Egyptian Pharaoh that he had been made Pharaoh in order to show God’s power. Paul’s point is that God’s will and God’s action determine to whom God’s mercy is granted, not human will or human action. The mention of Pharaoh led Paul to conclude that God “has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.”

Paul absolutizes the role of God positively and negatively in defining the people chosen for redemption and those whom God does not choose. Some Christians have understood this to be a form of double predestination. Many Presbyterians today would question Paul’s description of God’s role in selecting the people to whom God will be merciful and those to whom God will not be merciful.

For discussion
Romans 9-11 has had a profound – and often a very negative – impact on Jewish/Christian relations. A long history of Christian anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews has been tempered in recent years by those who work to bring about better understanding between Christians and Jews. How would you describe the impact of Romans 9-11 on the attitude of your congregation toward Jews? Some Presbyterian followers of Calvin developed the doctrine of double predestination out of Paul’s interpretation of Malachi 1:2-3. What do you think predestination means?

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