Romans / Paul's Sorrow and God's Sovereign Election

Paul's Sorrow and God's Sovereign Election

Romans 9:1-29

Chapter 9

¹ I speak the truth in Christ, I do not lie; my conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit, ² I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart. ³ For I could wish to be an anathema from Christ for my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh, ⁴ who are Israelites, to whom belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the legislation, the worship, and the promises, ⁵ of whom are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen. ⁶ It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are from Israel are Israel. ⁷ nor because they are the seed of Abraham are all children, but "In Isaac seed will be called to you." ⁸ This is not the children of the flesh—these are children of God—but the children of the promise are reckoned as seed. ⁹ For this is the word of the promise: "According to the appointed time, I will come, and Sarah will have a son." ¹⁰ not only that, but also Rebecca, who had children with one man, Isaac our father; ¹¹ for they had not yet been born nor had they practiced anything good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might remain, ¹² not from works but from the one calling, it was said to her, "The greater shall serve the lesser." ¹³ just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." ¹⁴ What then shall we say? "Is there unrighteousness with God?" May it never be! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion." ¹⁶ So then, it is not of the one willing nor of the one running, but of God showing mercy. ¹⁷ For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very thing I raised you up, so that I might show my power in you, and so that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." ¹⁸ Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, but he hardens whom he wills. ¹⁹ You will say to me therefore, "Why then does he still find fault? For who has withstood his will?" ²⁰ But, O man, who are you to answer back to God? Will the thing formed say to the one who formed it, "Why did you make me like this?" ²¹ Or does not the potter have authority over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel to honor but the other to dishonor? ²² But if God, wanting to show the wrath and to make known his power, bore with much long-suffering vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, ²³ and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he predestined for glory, ²⁴ whom he also called, not only from Jews but also from Gentiles? ²⁵ As he also says in Hosea, "I will call the not-my-people 'my people' and the not-loved 'loved.'" ²⁶ And it will be in the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," there they will be called sons of the living God. ²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, the remnant will be saved." ²⁸ For the Lord will do a word, completing and shortening it upon the earth. ²⁹ And just as Isaiah has foretold: "If the Lord of Hosts had not left us seed, we would have become as Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah."