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uh... imagining that most of
you opened your bibles and it fell open to chapter eight you
have to turn one page to the right uh... they we begin uh... this new
chapter but in actuality we are beginning an entire new section
that begins in chapter nine and culminates in chapter eleven
uh... this is considered as a very
famous uh... portion of scripture as we approach
paul's introduction to predestination and election in romans eight
twenty six i said that we would approach these things very carefully
indeed and so the first question we need to ask is uh... how does
this relate to what we have already learned why is there a new section
and what exactly is it So there are those who assert that on
ending chapter eight we ended the doctrinal part of Romans.
That Paul has finished this great doctrine of salvation and there
is no more doctrine to be found. That he is just addressing certain
problems and will deal with them through to the end of this letter.
For those with discernment, you already know that that is not
right. Okay? There's a vast wealth of
very high and important doctrine in this three chapter section.
So what then do we find here? At the end of chapter 8, Paul
has certainly finished with his clarification of the doctrine
of salvation, but from the standpoint of the individual believer only. He has dealt with justification
by faith alone, and sanctification and glorification, and then he
culminates with the final certainty and assurance of our entire deliverance
from God's wrath in glorification. But all along it has been from
the viewpoint of the individual believer. The difference we now
encounter is, though Paul is still dealing with the doctrine
of salvation and God's purpose in salvation, this is in a more
general manner. This is more from the viewpoint
of the world, and in particular from the standpoint of Jew and
Gentile. So it is still the doctrine of
salvation, but not in any order or steps or in stages. This is now with regards to God's
overall purpose. So why does Paul feel the need
to deal with this? Everything the believer needs
to know has been covered, as it were, and the assurance of
ultimate glorification has been proven. So why not just end with
chapter 8 and sign off? Why is this section of chapters
9 through 11 even necessary? Well, contrary to many commentators
and what most think, this is not an exposition of predestination
and the sovereignty of God. Yes, it is there, but that is
not the goal. It is not about the calling of
the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews. Again, it is there,
but that is not the main objective. It is also not the prophetic
teaching with regards to the Jews and their ultimate salvation
and their going back to the land. So now that we know what the
objective is not, what is it? How are we to understand these
three chapters? I believe that this section follows
logically from the previous one, especially from the teaching
that he gave us at the end of chapter 8. It is necessary because
of what he has just told us regarding the doctrine of the assurance
of the believer and the final perseverance of the believer.
As much time as we spent there, you will no doubt recall the
promised assurance that all things work together for good for them
that love God and are called according to his purpose. It
is God's purpose that guarantees the final preservation of the
saints and their final glorification. He then goes on to tell us that
God's purpose was worked out like this. Those whom he foreknew
he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn of many brothers. That is the purpose,
that is God's objective. Moreover, those he predestined
he also called, and those he called he justified, and those
he justified he also glorified. That is God's purpose carried
out in that way, and it is absolutely certain. He then puts up four
challenges and crushes any arguments to the contrary. It is absolutely
certain because it is the love of God in Christ Jesus, because
it is the purpose of God, and there is nothing and no one in
heaven or on earth or anywhere else that can forego God's purpose
or separate my soul from his love. Our security and assurance
is based on the immutability of God's will and purpose, meaning
it cannot be changed. The fact that anything God has
purposed must, of necessity, be carried out. Very well, then. What if someone were to hear
all this and were to come to Paul and say, well, that's all
well and good, but what about the whole case of the Jews? You
say that God finishes what he starts. You say that when something
is God's will, nothing can frustrate it. But if what you are preaching
is correct, then God's purpose has gone seriously astray. Because
the vast majority of the Jews are not Christians. They are
not in what you refer to as the Kingdom of God. Which, by the
way, is mostly Gentile believers. So then, Where is that purpose
of God? Where is the immutability of
his counsel? That was the objection. This
was not an imaginary objection. This is what the Jews were saying,
and they were saying it very loudly, and sometimes they were
saying it very violently. They were saying that Paul was
a traitor. They were saying that he was abandoning the Old Testament
and throwing it overboard. The Old Testament, after all,
is a book that concentrates only on the Jews. Everyone else is
an outsider. What you are teaching brings
those others in while the Jews are out. Paul is denying the
teaching regarding God and His purpose, as is plainly outlined
and worked out in the Old Testament, which, by the way, is full of
promises to the Jews. So Paul must take up and address
this objection. So it's not an entirely new section,
it follows from the previous one. Paul accepts the challenge,
of course, and he does so as he does all other objections.
He makes his statements and then he deals with the difficulties
and answers them, as he has done with circumcision in chapter
3, and Abraham in chapter 4, and antinomianism in chapter
6, and the law in chapter 7. And then he comes back in chapter
8 and continues the great doctrine of assurance and the final preservation
of the saints. And once again, come the objections. And so in chapters 9 through
11, Paul will reconcile everything he has taught us thus far with
the whole of the Old Testament. So Paul did not just finish chapter
8 and say, well, we covered that. Now what else might we want to
cover? Oh yeah, there is this question of Jew and Gentile.
We need to deal with that. That is not it. There is no break
here. This section follows the previous
one of necessity. He has to deal with this because
so many, especially the Jews, had a serious problem with his
teaching. And Paul is especially prone
to win them to the truth and thus to the faith. So in these
three chapters, Paul addresses each argument and completely
demolishes those arguments. So what then is this section?
It is what is known as a theodicy. Anybody ever heard that term
before? It is a justification, as it were, of the ways of God
with respect to man. It is a far larger subject than
predestination. It is far larger than the calling
of the Gentiles and the rejection of the Jews. It is an attempt
at harmonizing the ways of God, and we must be very careful to
not reduce it to anything less than that. This is Paul's way
of harmonizing the Old Testament and the New Testament, harmonizing
everything that God has ever done or said or revealed with
what He is still doing and what He is going to do. It is, in
other words, Paul's way of showing us that though these things may
seem to be contradicting God's purpose, they are absolutely
not. God's purpose is absolute and
nothing can frustrate it. In these three chapters, Paul
demonstrates the eternal consistency of God, the consistency of God
with himself, with his own nature, and his own glorious purpose.
And so as we work through these three chapters, it is inevitable
that we will find things that we do not understand and certain
things that we don't agree with because we lack the understanding. It might be best to take Paul's
summary at the end of chapter 11 and keep that in mind through
this whole process. If you want to turn over a couple
of pages to the right, chapter 11, at the end of chapter 11, This is a description of what
we're fixing to jump into here. Verses 33 to 36. He says, Oh, the depth of the
riches and wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are
his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the
mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? or who has given
a gift to him that he might be repaid for from him and through
him and to him are all things to him be glory forever so anybody
that has uh... you know we have all these different
denominational ideas out there about what this section these
three chapters is about this is paul's way of saying you don't
know what you're talking about This is all about God. All of
this is from Him, it's through Him, and it's to Him. It's not
about us. So we see, hopefully, that this
is far bigger than just predestination. Predestination is only a small
part of this. Those who raise predestination
up as the main theme in this section totally miss God Himself. in all of his glory and of his
person and character. Predestination is merely one
of the ways in which God works out his great purpose. So what
are the themes found here? As we said, the main theme is
God's glorious person and character, but there are also subsidiary
themes, as it were. First is the especially tragic
case of the Jews and their rejection of Christ as their own Messiah. This being especially a tragedy
to Paul himself, who was a Jew, is a Jew, and he does not forget
to tell us that and to repeat it again and again. And so we
shall see the causes of that as he states them plainly. Secondly,
there is the theme of God's freedom in his absolute sovereignty in
the matter of election and his right to call whom he will, whether
it be Jew or Gentile, that being what Paul is dealing with here
ultimately, not simply with an election in and of itself. We
already dealt with election and predestination in chapter 8.
All he does here is to show us God's freedom in election, which
is a different thing altogether. Third theme is the Christian
teaching concerning salvation for any individual, whether they
be Jew or Gentile. In light of the teaching of the
Old Testament, This is of utmost importance, and we see that Paul
keeps on doing that. He was very sensitive on this
point, and justifiably so. He was a Jew and a Pharisee and
an expert in the Old Testament, and this one charge always cut
him to the core, as it were. People claimed that he was denying
the Old Testament teaching. But I'm not, says Paul. I can
prove to you that everything that I am teaching is there in
the Old Testament. So he justifies his teaching
on the Christian doctrine of salvation in terms of the Old
Testament teaching and shows that the New Testament, rather
than contradicting the Old, is actually a fulfilling of the
Old. Fourth subsidiary theme is the
extreme danger of misunderstanding and misusing doctrine. This was
where the Jews fell the hardest, drawing false conclusions from
the plain teaching of the Old Testament concerning the purpose
of God for his people. This is the main reason that
they came to reject Christ. This is a terrible danger and
it is still prevalent today. While having shown how the Jews
were guilty of this error, he then turns to the Gentiles and
says, you need to be careful as well. If the natural branches
made that mistake, then you are surely not immune to the same
thing. Now, are these doctrines dangerous? They are glorious, but they are
also very dangerous. The Great Doctrine of Assurance
and Final Perseverance of the Saints. How many times have you
heard people say, I am a child of God, therefore it does not
matter what I do. Because I am a child of God,
my glorification is certain. So I can do as I like, because
I am bound to get there. When I hear most often, Everyone
sins and mine are no worse than anybody else's. That is what
we refer to as antinomianism. It was rampant in the early church.
James and Peter and John and Jude spent much time riding against
antinomianism, even as Paul did on occasion. And it is still
rampant today. Once saved, always saved. Once
in grace, always in grace are most often used If you hear those
terms put out, they are put out by people who desire to live
for the devil and still avoid the fires of hell. It has to
be dealt with repeatedly. So if you are not constantly
reminding yourself to examine yourself daily, there is a great
danger lurking. Yes, daily. Jesus himself said,
except a man deny himself daily and take up his cross and follow
me, He cannot what? He cannot be my disciple, okay?
Not that doing such earns your spot. This does not earn you
anything, but it is proof of the new creation that is you.
We will see Paul in this section warning us against such antinomianism,
the abuse of this doctrine, drawing false deductions from God's glorious
truth, even to the damnation of the soul. This is what he
is dealing with and he shows us that both Jew and Gentile
are guilty. Fifth theme, Paul gives a very
full explanation of the particular case of the Jews in the purpose
of God. That's mainly in chapter 11 where
he explains what is happening to them now and what is also
going to happen to them. Lastly, number six is God's eternal
purpose in Christ. and salvation with respect to
the whole universe. That is a theme that runs consistently
through the entire section. Oh, the depth of the riches and
wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments
and how inscrutable His ways. So we as Reformed believers are
so quick to pat ourselves on the back because we believe in
election and predestination and those others out there do not.
We think that by doing so, that we understand God's mind and
purpose. I believe that this section has
an ulterior motive to show us that understanding the mind and
the purpose of God is not quite as easy or as neat or as simple
as we sometimes tend to think. Sure, we believe in election
and predestination, but nobody here understands it. We believe
that God exists inside and outside of time, but nobody here understands
that, okay? Belief in these things is a good
thing, but it is just the second step in a journey of a thousand
miles. If all this doctrine does not
lead us to wonder and amazement and to worship, there is something
very wrong with our limited understanding of it. True understanding of
any doctrine, even an incomplete understanding, should always
lead us to praise, and more than that, to humility before God. So there are the themes, whose
purpose is to bring out the central theodicy. Again, theodicy is
a justification of the ways of God with respect to man. The
theme that governs all of this. Few things to note as a sort
of structural analysis of this section. Remember that Paul did
not write this in chapters. That came about the 13th century,
a long time after he wrote this, okay? But whoever did it, did
it very well. They saw and understood what
Paul was trying to accomplish. The first thing being that in
each chapter he identifies himself with the Jews. And he does so
with love and compassion and courtesy. In chapter 9, he begins
with the great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart for his
kinsmen, according to the flesh. In chapter 10, that his heart's
desire in prayer to God is that they might be saved. And in chapter
11, that by no means has God rejected his people, proof being
that he himself is an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member
of the tribe of Benjamin, each time identifying himself with
his fellow countrymen thereby proving his love and concern
for them. Second thing is the elaboration
of doctrine. Chapter 9, the doctrine is predestination
and election. Chapter 10 is justification by
faith alone. And in chapter 11, it is the
temporary rejection of the Jews. Each time, starting with the
Jews, with whom he self-identifies, and then giving us a statement
of doctrine. Third is, we find in each chapter,
is Paul's confirmation of the doctrine from the scriptures.
At the end of each one, he quotes the scriptures of the Old Testament
to prove what he has just been saying in his doctrine. So we see that it is not just
random words. He planned each chapter. This
is the sovereignty of God. Paul planned each chapter before
it was even a chapter. You get that? Each one has a
definite purpose. So we have a general introduction
to our section that most of you will probably forget in the three
years that it will take us to get through it. But this is a
good way to approach it. Most have no idea of what is
in this section. They're so interested in a particular
doctrine that they can't see the forest for the trees, as
it were. Some people see nothing here but predestination. Some
people see nothing but the Jews and their ultimate destiny and
all the rest of that prophecy stuff. It's very sad to miss
the most glorious thing, the most glorious thing being the
theodicy, the justification of God's ways with respect to men,
and the harmonizing of what God permits with what God purposes,
what God allows with what He has planned, all of which show
how all things do indeed work together for good and to the
ultimate carrying out of God's eternal purpose. Now, introduction finished. We will take a look at the first
three verses. Chapter 9, verses 1 to 3. I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience
bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. that I have great sorrow
and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself
were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,
my kinsmen according to the flesh." You see the change that happens
here. Paul has just finished quite possibly the greatest oratory
on assurance that exists in all of time. through all of chapter
eight it is just glory after glory and joy after joy and assurance
after assurance and God's faithfulness and love ending with this great
crescendo that there is nothing that can separate God's people
from their God nor God from his people if chapter eight doesn't
give you the tangles that's a good word chapter eight doesn't give
you the tangles then you probably need a heart check, okay? God's elect are guaranteed their
spot in heaven. Amen, hallelujah, praise the
Lord. God's elect. Many brothers, Jesus Christ was
the first. Paul is one. You and I are one. There are many more. Paul's joy
over this is obvious, as should ours be. Joyous through the whole
of chapter eight. But there is a problem. This
is the jump that Paul takes from joy to anguish. There is someone
not included in chapter 8. Many someones. Ones that Paul
loves. His kinsmen, according to the
flesh, are outside the camp. They are lost. There is no joy
to share with them. They are lost and they are headed
for eternal punishment in hell. And Paul now changes his focus
away from us, so that his focus in chapter 8 was us, okay? Away
from us to the ones who are outside. This is a vital statement made
here. Why make such a statement and why put it in this form?
Are there lessons and conclusions that we can draw from this? So
let's look at what he is actually saying here. Starts out with,
I am speaking the truth in Christ. So an immediate question comes
up, is Paul taking an oath here? It's not likely. Paul knows that
God has forbidden the taking of oaths, so this is not that. He says he's in Christ. He's
speaking not flippantly or carelessly or casually, but speaking as
one who realizes his position in Jesus Christ. Paul wants readers
to know that he knows that Christ is watching and reading what
he is writing, and so he is basically saying that he cannot make a
stronger statement than this. But he continues, and he makes
it stronger still. He says, I am not lying. See,
Paul wants everyone who reads this to know that he is speaking
this in the most serious and solemn manner imaginable. But he goes even beyond that.
He says, my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit. Paul's conscience, motivated
by the Holy Spirit, is attesting to the truth of what he is saying. So, in other words, here, what
he is saying It is not merely that I make this statement with
all the honesty that I can command, not merely that there is no lie
nor any thought of lying anywhere near me. I am saying this with
all the sincerity that I command, but there is something even more
than that. My conscience bears witness to it. So why does that
make it stronger? Well, the answer is that our
conscience is something that is independent of us. We all,
I believe, know that. We very often say or do things,
but that does not mean that our conscience agrees with those
things that we say or do. That is what makes our conscience
so important. It is something that is apart
from us, placed in us by God as a reminder of the voice of
God inside of us. It's kind of like our inner hall
monitor. You guys remember the hall monitors
from school? Your conscience is your hall monitor. You don't
need to be running in the hall, okay? And we cannot really manipulate
our conscience. It's there. God put it there.
It is what it is. We can ultimately sear it by
ignoring its leadings and going against it. But for believers,
our conscience stands as our independent witness. So Paul
very appropriately says that his conscience agrees with what
he is saying. We must at all times pay attention
to our conscience and avoid any acts contrary to its guidance. And then he adds in the Holy
Spirit. Yes, the conscience is independent, but it is sometimes
fallible and it needs to be enlightened. That enlightening comes through
the work of the Holy Spirit planting the Word within us. A conscience
not bathed in the word, enlightened to it by the Holy Spirit, can
lead to all kinds of hedonism and paganism. Y'all know as well
as I do that there were things in your life that your conscience
once told you were okay. But being enlightened by the
word, you now know the truth that those things are not okay.
Okay? Or the flip side. There are things
that you thought were not okay, but the word has enlightened
your conscience to see that there is no harm to be found in those
things. Paul's letter to the church in Corinth offers us an
example. There were believers in the church
in Corinth, and there were those new to the faith that believed
that eating meat offered to idols was a heinous sin. Others who
had been enlightened by the Word and the Spirit had come to know
that idols were not even a thing to be considered, since they
were not even real. So they ate the meat with a good
conscience. Most important thing to remember
from this, whatever stage you are in, do not argue with your
conscience. If you act against your conscience,
then it is sin irregardless. It is the Holy Spirit and the
teaching of the Scriptures that must enlighten your conscience,
not your own ideas about things. Okay, so that is what Paul is
attesting to here. His conscience, enlightened by
the Holy Spirit, is saying amen to what he is saying here. This
is not for show. This is not an attempt to ease
some of the negative actions of the Jews against him. This
is how he really feels deep down to the core of his being. So
what is it that has struck him so sharply? He says that I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For whom? For my kinsmen according to the
flesh. There is nothing here about I
care about them, but there's nothing I can do for them, so
I may as well get on with my life. Much more on that in the
coming weeks. This is heart-wrenching. This
is great sorrow and unceasing, never-ending, incessant anguish. All day, every day. There is
no depth of feeling greater than this. Because of the state and
condition of his countrymen, Paul's sorrow and anguish was
almost as deep as his joy of salvation was high. This is how
he feels with regard to the whole position of the Jews. So we saw
how joyous and glorious he is about his joy of salvation. This
is the total opposite end of the spectrum because of his countrymen
that he loves. And as deep and heartfelt as
all of that is, it almost pales into insignificance in comparison
to what he says next. He says, for I could wish that
I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake
of my brothers." Now, lots of misinterpretations regarding
this statement made here. So we're going to clarify this
as best we can. It is an obviously difficult
statement. Some feel the need to apologize for the difficult
statements. So they come up with all sorts
of silly answers to this. One is that Paul is saying here
that if it is my presence in the Christian church that is
causing the offense to the Jews, then I am prepared to be excommunicated
from the visible church in order that they may come in. So if
I need to be kicked out of church so they'll come in, let's go
for it. That's what some people say this
means, okay? We know that's not it. Uh, can't
be that. The word translated accursed
here is anathema, meaning cursed by God. He also says cut off
from who? Christ. Not from the church,
but from Christ. He is talking about becoming
a reprobate, being an outcast from Christ and God's kingdom
and the whole of Christian salvation. That is what he says. But what
does he mean? Now, being the intellectual giant
that you all know that I am, I'm going to contradict John
Calvin on this point. Calvin says that Paul here actually
wished himself to be condemned in the place of his countrymen.
outcast from the kingdom of god and excluded from salvation in
order that they might be saved and become christians that's
john calvin i disagree simply because the last man in the world
that would ever say something like this is the apostle paul
because he just got through telling us that a man's salvation is
not something that he determines A man cannot wish to be in or
out. So to say that Paul is here wishing
to be condemned in place of the Jews accuses him of the worst
sort of contradictory teaching. So what is the answer? It is
found in the verb tense that he uses. It is the imperfect
tense. Now, I am not a Greek scholar.
So what I'm going to put before you is the exposition of men
like Martin Lloyd-Jones and Charles Hodge and Henry Alford and Sunday
and Headlam. Notice that he does not say,
I do wish. He didn't say, I do wish. What
did he say? I could wish. You see the difference? The act of wishing such things
to happen is unfinished. He starts the process but an
obstacle intervenes and he cannot complete it. It is, in other
words, a man beginning to think one thing and then he realizes
something and so that line of thinking has to stop. He was
at the point of wishing or of thinking this thing but he did
not get any further than that. According to the Greek grammarians
that I just named off, as it were, That is the force of the
word used here. Not I do, but I could. Charles Hodge says that I could
wish, were the thing allowable and possible or proper, implies
the presence of a condition known to be impossible. Like I said,
I could wish that I could disagree with John Calvin humbly. You
don't disagree with John Calvin humbly. It's not possible. There's
a lot of arrogance that goes into disagreeing with John Calvin.
Anyway, I think that is the key to understanding this statement.
No man, especially the Apostle Paul, would wish to trade the
eternal glories of heaven which had been revealed to him in exchange
for the eternal agonies of hell which had also been revealed
to him knowing that doing so would in no way alter the predetermined
plan of God with respect to these Jews. Nor would he ever place
himself on the level of Christ in that thinking that his sacrifice
could purchase another salvation. So why make this statement at
all then? Yes, it is the theodicy. Paul harmonizing what is actually
happening with what he has been teaching. I believe that it is
also Paul's attempt to clear himself of the charges that were
constantly being brought against him. These fellow countrymen
that he loved so much hated him with a passion regarding him
as a renegade and a traitor no better than the publicans of
the time who sold their souls to Rome and gathered taxes from
their own people i remember the publicans right money kept a
little bit for themselves and gave the rest of Rome no one
was hated more than the publicans except for maybe Paul they said
that he was hostile to the Jews an enemy of his own nation and
Paul felt this to the very depths of his being How would you feel
if you knew that every one, every last one of your countrymen hated
you? And so he says, I am not only
not against my fellow countrymen, the thought has even entered
my mind that if somehow or other my being accursed could save
them, well, I would almost be prepared to go that far. He wanted everyone to know that
he was not an anti-Jew. In fact, quite the opposite.
But even more than that, he wants to unfold the tragedy of the
position of the Jews. And he, of all people, knows
what he is talking about. He is a Jew, not only that, but
a Pharisee of the Pharisees, a man immersed in the law and
the history of Israel, If ever a man had the right to speak
on this matter, it was Paul. And he wants to try to show the
tragedy of their position. The tragedy that only a Jew like
himself could possibly understand or appreciate. So what is that
position of the Jews that has Paul so deep in sorrow and in
daily anguish? the greatest tragedy possibly
that the world has ever known. He came unto his own and his
own received him not. That they of all people should
have betrayed him and crucified him and rejected him, that is
the tragedy of tragedies. But what they meant for evil
God meant for what? For good. Good for you and good
for me and good for untold many more that he might be the firstborn
of many brothers. Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much. Lord Jesus, thank you so much. purchasing us as your brethren. Thank you for revealing yourself
just a little bit to us through your word that we might know
you better, that we might trust you more, that we might run to
you more. I thank you for today. I thank
you for service this morning. Thank you for our service to
come. Lord be with us as we go through the remainder of this
day. May everything we say and do
be for your glory and yours alone. In Christ's name I pray.
Introduction to Romans 9-11
Series Romans study
Introduction to Romans 9-11 and what Paul is really concerned to show to his readers. This entire section inevitably follows what Paul has just taught in chapter 8.
| Sermon ID | 420252215544797 |
| Duration | 41:30 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Bible Text | Romans 9:1-3 |
| Language | English |
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