Blessed Hope Bible-Presbyterian Church
500 Upper Bukit Timah Rd, Singapore 678106
Apostle Paul cited Exodus 9:16, how Pharaoh was raised by God as Egypt’s supreme ruler to declare His glory during the time of Israel’s Exodus. Pharaoh was subdued by the Almighty power of God, demonstrating that the LORD (Jehovah); He is God, the Creator of all things. God shows all the earth that He is greater than great Pharaoh, the self-proclaimed representative of Ra, the sun god.
God is merciful. It is His character. He saves sinners. There is a way out from the condemnation of sin because God is merciful. He reached out to us through His Son. Indeed, as the Apostle Paul testifies in Romans 10:9-11 (KJV) 9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. 10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11 For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
If God has not extended His mercy upon sinners like us, we would have perished in our sins. He extended His mercy to us by sending His Son to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Can God be charged being uncompassionate? Certainly not. But there are those in Israel who chose to spurn the grace of God through Christ by rejecting the gospel. Are they culpable? Yes, for rejecting God’s love.
Is God unrighteous to choose Jacob over Esau and Isaac over Ishmael? The Apostle Paul is teaching us that He is not unjust to choose one over the other. God knows the beginning and the end. God’s people are to rest on the mystery of God’s wisdom which we may never understand. But we know that He knows what He is doing. And we submit ourselves to His sovereign will for He is God and we are not. We are to exercise faith in His infinite wisdom and goodness.
We have here the fact of election: “He chose us.” Here we have its time: “Before the foundation of the world; its basis: “according to the good pleasure of His will”; and its vehicle: “in Christ”. Here also is its purpose: “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” And here is the proper response to it: “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” We may quibble all we want about why the Lord would operate in this way, but whether we like it or not, this is His way, as He made abundantly clear in His revelation to Rebekah.”
In Genesis 17:19 (KJV), God said to Abraham, 19 … Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him.” God will cause Sarah’s barren womb to be opened in her old age to bring forth this son of the covenant. Even the name of this child was given by God. This is the son Isaac through whom will fulfil God’s covenant with Abraham. At that time, Abraham had another son Ishmael who came from the womb of Sarah’s handmaid Hagar. Ishmael was not the son of promise. He came because Abraham and Sarah did not trust God and with impatience sought to “help God” fulfil His promise. God clarified with Abraham that Ishmael is not the son of promise that will bring forth the Messiah but Isaac.
Abraham’s true son shares Abraham’s faith. He trusts Abraham’s God. As we survey Abraham’s life, we observe the birth of Isaac according to God’s promise came 25 years after God gave the promise when he was 100 years old. Although Abraham had other children until then and after that, Isaac would inherit all the spiritual promises that God gave Abraham. Isaac would be the son by whom Messiah would come. He was the fulfilment of God’s promise to Abraham. A child that came at Sarah’s old age, way past the age of child-bearing.
The Apostle Paul seeks to enlighten the believers in Rome and all Christians concerning the predicament of the Jewish people. Though they have rejected their Messiah and crucified Him, this has not nullified God’s promise to Israel as His chosen nation and His representative to the world. There is yet a remnant in Israel that are His true children.
The heaviness of the Apostle Paul’s heart for the Jewish people, his kinsmen, is likened to Nehemiah’s grief (Neh. 1) when he saw the desolation that had befallen the returnees in Jerusalem after 70 years of Babylonian captivity. The walls of Jerusalem were broken. It is likened to the burden in Daniel’s heart when he sought the Lord in prayer and fasting to know the future for His people in the 69th year of their captivity (Daniel 9-12) in Babylon.
This new section is focused upon the Jewish people. The Apostle Paul explains his burden for the salvation of his people, the Jews. He explains why the Jews seemed to have been set aside by God and yet they are not. God is not finished with the Jews yet. He has a great spiritual burden for the salvation of the Jews. They were his kinsmen. Whichever city he was sent to preach the gospel, he would reach out to the Jews first.