Or, A Revealed but Rude Awakening
Scripture: Romans 9:24-29
Date: March 5, 2023
Speaker: Sean Higgins
The Lord works in merciful ways. God’s ultimate purpose is to share the riches of His glory with vessels of mercy He has prepared for glory (Romans 9:23). I started by saying the Lord works in merciful ways, when most would expect the phrase to be “the Lord works in mysterious ways.” That’s a sticky idea, even if the sentence isn’t in Scripture. The phrase was sown in a 1773 hymn written by William Cowper with the first line, “God moves in a mysterious way.” Christians — and non-Christians — have been saying it since.
It does seem to summarize what the prophet Isaiah wrote (and Paul quotes another word from Isaiah in the paragraph we’re considering today):
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
(Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV)
We usually take this as a statement about God’s omniscience, or even His providence. He has access to more information than we do and He employs more advanced tactics to accomplish His purposes. There’s no question that He is infinitely wise; He lacks no data or perspective. He is infinitely deliberate; He gets straight lines from crooked sticks. But in context, Isaiah praises God’s mysterious ways for being merciful ways.
Isaiah 55 opens with the grand invitation for the thirsty to come and have water, wine, and milk. The hungry are called to have real bread, good and rich food. Through the son of David there would be life and security. And then Isaiah exhorts: “Seek the LORD while He may be found; … let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return…to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7). Verse 8 begins with “for,” verse 8 is the explanation for compassion and forgiveness: the Lord works in merciful ways that are higher.
Romans 9 (and really the point of chapters 9-11 taken together) is a New Testament explanation of the Lord’s merciful electing purposes — not our thoughts, and merciful glory-sharing — not our ways.
All the primary pokey points are at the Jews. The religious elite told the Great I Am Himself that Abraham was their father, so they presumed that they were good (John 8:39). Jesus told them that they had a different father, and that they shared his will to murder and lie (John 8:44). Paul is addressing the same problem group in Romans 9. The Israelites had the law and the covenants and the patriarchs; why were so many of Paul’s ethnic brothers still cut off from Christ?
The Lord works in merciful ways that are not man’s ways. God’s purpose of election stands as He shows mercy on whom He shows mercy. God’s calling is what matters, not man’s condition or man’s conduct. Isaac was chosen for mercy, as was Jacob, as are all vessels of mercy. And having received mercy, we have not received the right to say who else gets mercy. That can look mysterious to us.
In Romans 9:24-29 Paul shines light from two angles on an obvious mystery—even if it’s really mystery that was hidden in plain prophetic sight. Paul returns from the truth about God’s eternal purpose (Romans 9:21-23) to the application in God’s mercy to the nations and to the nation of Israel in history. Surprise (sort of)! Many non-Jews get mercy! And surprise (sort of)! It’s a mercy any Jews get mercy!
Neither of these should have been a surprise; both parts were revealed in the prophets and Paul quotes four OT passages in this paragraph. Prophets prophesied about mercy, but it was still a rude awakening. This wasn’t just Paul’s perspective, it was God’s Word.
Verse 24 connects the called to the elect vessels of mercy, but sets it up that mercy is for more.
even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:24 ESV)
The called are those “those who are called according to His purpose…predestined, called, justified, glorified” (see more in Romans 8:28-30). What’s important is the “not only, but also.” Vessels of mercy are also ἐξ ἐθνῶν (compared to Ἕλληνι, the Greek in 1:16), from the nations.
Paul quotes the “prostitute prophet,” Hosea, who was called by the Lord to take a wife of whoredom (Hosea 1:2) as an object lesson to Israel who had forsaken the Lord as a spiritual adulteress. Romans 9:25-26 seem to be applied to the Gentiles, even though the original context of the quotes in Hosea refer to the ten tribes Israel. Since verse 24 ends with the “also from the Gentiles” and since verse 27 implies a contrast: “but Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,” Hosea’s prophecy applies to the “not My people” peoples.
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.’
“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.’”
(Romans 9:25–26 ESV)
Verse 25 is a rough quote of Hosea 2:23 (which is also quoted in 1 Peter 2:10). There are depictive names of Hosea’s kids, and the ESV puts the Hebrew names in the footnotes: after a son named Jezreel, Hosea and Homer had a daughter named Lo-ruhama meaning “No Mercy” (Hosea 1:6) and then another son named Lo-ammi meaning “Not My People” (Hosea 1:8). The tribes of Israel had committed spiritual adultery, and so were being treated as if they were divorced. But the Lord covenanted that He would save them. The covenant (Hosea 2:18) in context belongs to Israel, and Paul sees in the Lord’s treatment of Israel an opening to the Gentiles.
Romans 9:26 quotes Hosea 1:10, and same idea.
Why does Paul apply prophetic words to Israel to those who were not Israel? First, on the surface, for those who didn’t know the original context in Hosea, the words work. Mercy is for many strangers, mercy is extended among the nations. Second, to the Jews who knew the context, it would be a rude awakening. Promises of mercy to them were being applied to philistines, enemies, the undesirables. The words confront religious presumption. Third, to the Gentiles who knew the context, it would be a rude awakening. Who among them wanted to be like the Jews? In practice the words offend cultural sensibilities.
The Gentiles were “having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). But those “who were once far off” have been given a new identity as sons of the living God. They are no longer strangers and aliens (Ephesians 2:19). This is the Lord’s doing and it is merciful in our eyes.
Paul turns to a major prophet, Isaiah, who cries out concerning Israel. As has been an issue, many Jews prided themselves in being sons of Abraham. They took their covenant status for granted. If they had listened to their own prophets they might have been more careful.
“Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”
(Romans 9:27–29 ESV)
Verses 27-28 quote Isaiah 10:22-23, a context prophesying God’s anger against Israel through Assyria; the Assyrians would be God’s tool of judgment to desolate Israel, a thorough yet not quite complete punishment. They key word is remnant. The remnant are the minority, the small group within the greater number, and the remnant among the Jews is important until partway through Romans 11 when God’s mercy is extended to more than a remnant. The remnant are the elect individuals within the elect nation, the sons who are sons in more than biological ways.
Only a remnant will be saved. Isaac and Jacob were early entries in this remnant. The rest will know judgment. The Lord’s sentence is His verdict, and He will execute it fully and without delay.
The second quote in verse 29 is from Isaiah 1:9. It’s quite a shock to the system to say that Israel deserved destruction like Sodom and Gomorrah, a stereotype of both reprobate behavior and total obliteration. The Jews would have thought that sort of judgment was for others, for the Really Bad™️, not for them. But the offspring are the remnant, and apart from mercy, the Lord of hosts would have have left even a small set of the saved.
Many Gentiles have received mercy, and continue to through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Many Israelites did not, and many Jews continue to reject Jesus as the Messiah. It’s not about turning Gentiles into Israelites (Gentiles aren’t saved to be “true” or “spiritual” Israel; the application of promises of mercy is extended but the distinction is not removed). Both need the gospel of mercy. The goal of God’s mercy is global. “All the ends of the earth…all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For kingship belongs to the LORD, and He rules over the nations” (Psalm 22:27-28).
Read/heard from an angle of entitlement, it was rude (1) for Paul to apply promises given to Israel to Gentiles, (2) for Paul to act like Gentiles would be interested in promises given to Israel anyway, and (3) still further for Paul to remind Israel that a remnant was better than she deserved.
But mercy is often a reversal of expectations. You can’t tell by looking at the outside. God works in mysterious ways, not necessarily that they are hidden but that we are constantly calculating by other standards. We keep thinking we know the measurement of mercy. But Christ, whose merciful ways are higher than our ways, came to call tax collectors and sinners, gang members and Democrats, the broken among the tribes, the broken among the transgender, even people like us. God works in marvelously and mysteriously merciful ways.
You are called to faith, called to freedom, called to be saints, called to fellowship, called to eternal glory. That’s why those with Lamb, who is the Lord of lords and King of kings, are the “called and chosen and faithful” (Revelation 17:14). Look to Him, live as His people.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:10–11, ESV)