Romans 9:18-26 Loved of God!

Romans 9:18-26  Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.  One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us?  For who is able to resist his will?”  But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God?  “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”  Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?  What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?  What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?  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,” and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living, and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

In the above scripture, Paul addresses God’s sovereignty in the creation of the world and of man.  We hear again Paul’s cry for the Children of Israel that we have already read: I speak the truth in Christ—I am 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 of my own race, the people of Israel.  (Romans 9:1-4)  His Jewish people seem like a piece of pottery thrown on the floor, unacceptable to God.  Jesus said at the end of his Sermon on the Mount: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.  (Matthew 5:48 KJV)  The mold of humankind could never be perfect with man’s efforts alone, no matter how many laws or regulations people followed.  After Adam’s fall, the pottery would never be in God’s perfect image unless the mold was perfect, of course that is Jesus Christ.  God knew what the Jewish people would do when the Messiah was revealed in their midst.  They would reject him.  If they would have accepted him completely; their position of being God’s chosen would have been confirmed completely.  And maybe, the plan of redemption of all people in the world would have ended within Israel.  The Roman yoke would have been thrown off by the miraculous works of the Christ, and Israel would have become a power in the world, but what would have happened to the redemption of every person in the world?  How could all people be saved and brought into intimate communication with God if Jesus was in Israel only, implementing his perfect work?  If Jesus had been limited to one group of people, He would have been working merely with the senses of this world, not with spiritual realities in the dominion of heaven and Earth.  The plan for the Jews’ national salvation had to be thrown aside at that time.  God had chosen a better plan, a way for all people to find the God who created them.  To the Jews, a plan to include the Gentile world in God’s perfect will seemed an anathema.  They were the chosen, the blessed, not the “others”.  They were the lump of clay chosen for honor by the Master Potter.  In the Old Testament, God said of the Jews, for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.  (Zechariah 2:8)  Why now are they seemingly cast aside, unable to grasp the reality of Christ coming to them and to the world in their time.  But in God’s redemption plan, He will do what he wants to do to show his glory, his magnificence.  The Messiah, Jesus Christ, did not come according to the will of the Jewish people, out of their goodness.  No, He came in God’s time, by his plan, his determination.  But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman.  (Galatians 4:4)  When no one expected him, Jesus came born of a lowly virgin to a hostile Jewish leadership who did not receive or accept him.  They became the clay of dishonor.  They did not set Jesus on the throne.  God foreknew all of this: their recalcitrant behavior, their rebellion.  He understood this story even before He sent his Son to them.  He offered Jesus to a people who thought they were the only ones who could ever be acceptable to God, but God had other plans.  By their rejection of his plan, God made Jesus the Savior of whosoever will throughout the world.  All people who would accept Jesus became the chosen: chosen to enter the kingdom of God forever, with an intimate relationship with God.  

Jesus said, I must go away so that you will have the Holy Spirit within you as your guide, comforter, counselor.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth.  (John 14:16)  Jesus did not come to a few, he came to the world because God chose this way, this story.  After Adam’s fall, God’s image in man became distorted.  Man’s self-will replaced God’s will.  The works of man are contrary to the works of God: So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.  (Galatians 5:16-18)   We find that God’s plan of salvation came to free all of us who are trapped in the imprisonment of the fleshly lifestyle.  We are displeasing to the holiness of God, for even our thoughts wander to self-willed desires and motives.  Our fallen nature is part of us.  Paul said there was something inside of him that he could not control.  We all have that something inside of us that is uncontrollable.  That old nature will come to the surface at some of the most inappropriate times.  The inner person will embarrass us or condemn us when we are weak in our resolve.  Otherwise, we are all lumps of dishonor, sometimes greater than other times, good for the garbage bin.  But God’s workmanship of placing us into the mold of Christ is perfect.  All who are IN CHRIST are in his shape: PERFECT, accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ.  We who are IN CHRIST are no longer mere creatures of the flesh, but we are the redeemed, in the mold of Jesus Christ.  Because of sin, we were unacceptable to God, outside of his favor and grace.  Rather than destroy us as He did in the day of Noah, He allowed us to exist doing our own will.  We were imprisoned in our way of life.  For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience, so he could have mercy on everyone.  (Romans 11:32, NLT)  But in his mercy and grace, God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to set us free to serve God in his household forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:36)    

God allowed the Messiah to come through the Jewish lineage as the blessed vehicle to bring redemption to all people.  Abraham’s faith that God could make something out of nothing and resurrect the dead brought the Jewish people great favor.  God blessed, protected, and taught them, even in their slavery.  They were a lump of clay of great honor.  God chose them above all other people.  He placed the law in their community, giving them regulations to follow for more blessing.  He had them sacrifice animals to cover their sins, keeping them in communion with God and sparing them from God’s wrath upon sin.  They were God’s chosen to salvage a human race in rebellion against its Creator.  Why then are their ears blocked, unable to hear and to accept the good news of Jesus the Messiah?  Paul concludes that God is the potter.  He determines with whom He will work and when He will work.  Jesus came at God’s appointed time when the oppressive Romans were in control of his chosen people, Israel.  This era of subjugation to the Romans was the appropriate time for God to implement his plan of salvation.  Jesus had to die as a lamb outside of the city gates by the hands of this foreign power.  Of course, He died because the Jewish elite wanted him dead; they were envious of Jesus’ power over the people.  Jesus’ popularity and message were causing them to lose their position and authority as religious leaders.  The chosen, those who had been molded by the law and its regulations to be acceptable to God, were now being challenged by a message of faith in Jesus Christ.  For Jesus’ followers believed faith alone IN HIM makes one acceptable to God.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not of works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 2:8-10)  Jesus makes people holy, in right standing before God.  Of course, faith has always been the acceptable mold, instigated by Abraham, hidden in the DNA of the Jewish people.  The seed of Messiah was theirs.  Not only within their DNA but in the reality of Jesus Christ coming to them, serving them, and ministering to them.  The Messiah came to their society, fulfilling the law and its regulations that they labored under unsuccessfully.  The Jewish people were a lump of clay for special purposes.  They brought the Christ to the land of the living in the flesh.  This was God’s plan from the beginning of time.  The Jewish people, the lump of honor, brought God’s eternal blessing through the Messiah to the lump of dishonor, the Gentiles,   As Paul quotes from 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,” and, “In the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living.  Today, may we rejoice that the heavenly Potter has formed us in the image of his Son, that we who were not a people are called the children of God!