The Millennium: Pre, Post, or Realized? #4

We will begin this post with the quotation of Romans 9:14-24, where we left off in the last post.

14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. 19 You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

In verses 14-18, in light of the proclamation of God’s sovereign choices, Paul decided to answer the obvious objection, “if God chooses whom to bless even before one is born; if God chooses to bless regardless of human effort, then how can He rightly judge those who would curse Him in unbelief if He has not chosen to bless them in the first place?”, and this answer is couched on the example of God’s dealings with Pharaoh through Moses. So we can say with the confidence of scripture that, the reason one is blessed and one has been shown mercy is finally determined only by the mercy of God and His right over His creation to do that which ultimately pleases Him and by the words of the Apostle, we may go as far as to say that, one day, somehow (certainly outside of the imperfect understanding of finite creatures) through His patience, God will make known the riches of His glory for those on whom He has chosen to pour out His mercy, and through His wrath He will make known His power.

25 As indeed he says in Hosea,"Those who were not my people I will call 'my people,' and her who was not beloved I will call 'beloved.'"26 "And in the very place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' there they will be called 'sons of the living God.'”

It is not insignificant that Paul at this point, supports his understanding of the reality that gentiles were then included and some of the Jews would not be saved by quoting the passage in Hosea concerning gentiles as he mentioned in verse 24. And to contrast this inclusiveness, Paul grants his hypothetical objectors another reason for the unbelief of Israel by the words of Isaiah:

27 And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, 28 for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay." 29 And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah." 30 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written, "Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame."

Even though God fulfilled His promise to Abraham to bless him with offspring whose number challenges the stars, only a remnant of them will be saved. Paul knows that if God had not preserved a portion of the people to remain, then the entire nation would have fallen into untold depravity and soon been utterly destroyed. I believe that verse 30 & 31 are also often read as a question, one following the question Paul poses for his objector, but verse 30 & 31 are not interrogatives but they are an answer to hypothetical interrogatives that would naturally arise given the content of Paul’s discourse. So, to the question posed by the Jewish skeptic, “well if God, as you say, has keep the covenantal promises even though the majority among the Jews is unbelief, yet God is just because it His good pleasure as to those who receives His mercy then, we must say, ‘That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.’” But why must we say this? The gentiles never pursued the righteousness through the practice of the rituals of the Old Covenant, but they pursued righteousness as Abraham did, by faith. Instead of pursuing a righteousness that is by faith, Israel pursued a law intended to lead them to righteousness, but on the whole they did not gain it, and that, because of their lack of faith; they were trying to attain it in their own strength. They were so dependant upon the ritualistic nature of their typological religion (circumcision, land, Sabbaths, feasts, and new moons) and their mad-made “new” laws (strange customs that were created to avoid the spirit of the Sabbath rest, for instance) and their ability to keep them that they missed the Object to which the precious symbols that they had been given pointed them…the coming Christ. The shame of stumbling clearly belonged to those unbelieving Jews, but certainly and eventually, even some of them would be saved, for we were all once children of wrath, just as they were. And even the former shame of unbelief is placed on Christ on the cross as He stayed hammered to it to receive our just punishment so that we can now and forever receive His just reward. To God be the glory, forever and ever, Amen!