Romans 9 — Read & Listen Online | Father's Heart Bible™

Paul's Anguish for His People

Chapter 9.

I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears witness with me in the Holy Spirit —that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers and sisters, my own people by natural descent. They are Israelites, and to them belong the full rights as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen. ^a

But it is not as though the word of our Father has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named." This means that it is not the children by natural descent who are the children of our Father, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: "About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son." Not only that, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our father Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that our Father's purpose according to election might stand, not because of works but because of him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger." As it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." ^b

What shall we say then? Is there injustice with our Father? By no means! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on our Father, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?" But who are you—a mere human—to answer back to our Father? Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me like this?" 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? What if our Father, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory —even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea, "Those who were not my children I will call 'my children,' 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 'children of the living Father.'"

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: "Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for our Father will carry out his sentence upon the earth, fully and without delay."

And as Isaiah predicted, "If the Father of heaven's armies had not left us offspring, we would have become like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah."

Israel Stumbled Over the Stone

What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; but that Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, did not reach that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, as it is written, "See, 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."

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