Romans 9:27-33 Jesus, the Rock!

Romans 9:27-33  Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:  “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea only the remnant will be saved.  For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.”  It is just as Isaiah said previously, “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.”  What then shall we say?  That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.  Why not?  Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone.   As it is written, “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 

Hear the words of the Lord, is Isaiah’s cry to the people of Israel.  They brought contempt on themselves by their religious actions without the purity of their hearts.  The Israelite’s believed their laws, sacrifices, and regulations would win them favor with God, but what they failed to bring to God was a strong devotion from their hearts, a purity in their actions.  In a sense, they avoided God’s authority and dominion over them through their culture of religion and its accompaniments.  In their daily lives, serving God was more of a religious routine, a cultural demand, not an issue of their hearts.  Consequently, they tended to view God basically as an invisible authority, one who was unapproachable to them unless they went through the mechanisms of their religion.  Of course, they understood they were God’s chosen, delivered out of slavery to Pharaoh.  But this was an event in the past, not a fresh experience. They were a special people, but their hearts were far from God.  The prophet wrote of them: These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught.  (Isaiah 29:13)  Because they did not embrace God’s will for them, they did not perform the tasks He wanted from them.  God indicts them on not taking care of the widows and the orphans: Wash and make yourselves clean.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong.  Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight; take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.  (Isaiah 1:16-17)  Obviously, they did not take care of the widow, the orphan, the homeless because taking care of others was not essential to them.  In many ways they had lost the heart of God to bless all the Israelites.  Sadly, even while performing their perfunctory religious activities their hearts were far from God. They were living similar to the Gentiles, not as God’s chosen people.  They even were serving lifeless idols, not the Creator of all things.  Hear me, you heavens!  Listen, earth!  For the Lord has spoken:  “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.  The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.”  (Isaiah 1:2-3)  The people did not truly understand God.  Their hearts were far from him.  God found their sacrifices and oblations intolerable to him, for they were brought with insincere hearts and wayward minds.

Israel failed because of the insincerity of their hearts and their lack of faith.  They also failed to realize that laws and sacrifices could not eradicate man’s sinful nature, a nature that will not bow down to God.  Rebellious men and women want their way all of the time.  Such an embedded nature makes us enemies to God.  The Israelites displayed this enmity between God and man when they lost sight of their Creator God.  How can that enmity be broken, only through a sacrifice that breaks down this wall of separation between God and man.  A perfect sacrifice that is acceptable to God had to be found.  Of course, Jesus Christ is that sacrifice.  God accepts his works, not ours.  Jesus’ works cleanse our hearts completely.  As John wrote, But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.  (1 John 1:7)  Our souls become pure; our spirits become oriented toward doing good rather than evil.  God’s work is perfect.  As we grow in the knowledge of the Lord, love should become a motivating factor in everything we do.  Now, Israel fell short because even in serving God through laws and regulations, faith should be present.  The foundation of all the laws and regulations God gave to the Israelites was based on faith in God.  In Romans 4, we see that Abraham won favor with God because he believed God makes something new out of something that was not as with creation itself, and he believed God resurrects the dead.  Otherwise, God is in control of life.  In every living person, life exists because God exists.  God is eternal, life is eternal.  Faith is foundational to every religious ordinance or lifestyle that pleases God.  Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  This is what the ancients were commended for.  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.  (Hebrews 11:1-3)  Examples of faith other than the laws and regulations themselves are the lives of the ancients.  Noah believed a new thing was going to be made out of the old; a new creation was going to exist.  Abraham believed many nations would come through him; he believed a new thing would be done with Sarah and his old bodies.  Joseph believed his people would occupy a new territory.  Moses believed a new land would be given to the Israelite slaves.  All of the ancients believed in the resurrection of the dead.  Their faith in life forever superseded their ideas of extending life here on Earth for a while.  They had special burial plots for those who died.  Joseph even wanted his bones to be delivered to the new land.  Life for them did not stop at their demise.  Their God was eternal; He could make them eternal.  Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.  (Hebrews 11:35) 

Faith establishes peace with God, not our own works and efforts.  For we are temporal, not consistent in our daily lives.  Sometimes we do well, serve God well; other times, we wobble, fail to please him with our lives.  Consequently, we need someone who is always faithful, always on task, always pleasing God.  Of course, that is Jesus Christ, who is claimed only through faith.  His works are our works through our strong belief in his works on the cross for us.  We substitute his life for ours.  Every believer stands with our brother, Paul, saying, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  (Galatians 2:20)   Laws and regulations never can make us acceptable to God.  If we tried to be acceptable to God through our inconsistent manner, we would lead ourselves into failure and punishment.  Without faith in a complete work that Christ accomplished, we would face the same judgment as Sodom and Gomorrah.  The Israelites’ rebellion of the heart led to God’s judgment on them.  Their religious activity became perfunctory, without substance.  They lacked a true belief that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob was the Creator of all things and that He demanded allegiance and obedience.  Their hearts of faith became cold; consequently, they fell under judgment.  Their faith in him was indifferent.  They believed they could satisfy any god through religious activity and laws.  But faith in the Living God leads to righteousness; laws and regulations alone lead to death.  The Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.  Why not?  Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works.  They stumbled over the stumbling stone.  The stumbling stone is Christ Jesus.  His works, not ours, achieve righteousness.  People are frustrated by this fact.  They want another way, one that includes them, their efforts, in this salvation message.  A remnant of society, of the Jews, of every nation will believe in this good news, but most will choose works, their goodness, over Christ and his good works.  May everyone reading this breakfast cast aside his or her feeble efforts to achieve right standing with God and turn to Jesus whole-heartedly.  Do not let him be a stone that causes you to stumble; rather, let him be the Rock that is the foundation of your life.  Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, and I will never be shaken.  (Psalm 62:2)