Romans 9
Paul's most anguished chapter: he could wish himself accursed for the sake of his kindred, and then argues that God's freedom to elect is the very ground of hope.
Summary
Romans 9 is the most personally anguished chapter in Paul's letters. He opens with an oath — he is speaking the truth in Christ, not lying — that he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart. He could wish himself accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his kindred according to the flesh — the Jewish people. The depth of the statement is hard to overstate: the apostle to the Gentiles would accept his own damnation if it meant Israel's salvation. He then catalogues Israel's privileges — the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, the promises, the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, the Christ. The privileges are real. And yet most of Israel has not received the gospel. Has God's word failed?
Paul's answer is that the word has not failed because it has always worked through election rather than ethnic descent. Not all who are descended from Israel are Israel in the sense that counts; the promise runs through Isaac, not Ishmael, through Jacob, not Esau — chosen before they were born or had done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose of election would stand, not because of works but because of him who calls. God says to Moses: I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. He hardens whom he wants, as he hardened Pharaoh. The objection — why then does God still find fault, since who can resist his will? — is raised and answered not by full explanation but by appeal to the sovereignty of God over his creation: the potter is not questioned by the clay. The chapter closes by citing Hosea (those who are not my people I will call my people) and Isaiah (a remnant will be saved) as the scriptural authorization for what God is doing with Gentiles and Israel now.
- Romans 1Chapter 1 is the opening of a long letter to a community Paul did not found and has not yet visited.
- Romans 2Chapter 2 is the turn in Paul's argument.
- Romans 3Chapter 3 is the hinge of the letter's first movement.
- Romans 4Chapter 4 is Paul's exegetical demonstration of justification by faith, built entirely from the figure of Abraham.
- Romans 5Chapter 5 opens the second major movement of the letter (chapters 5-8), which draws out the consequences of the justification argued in chapters 1-4.
- Romans 6Chapter 6 opens with Paul's most pointed rhetorical question: Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? The question follows logically from the last verse of chapter 5, where he said grace abounds where sin increases, and it is the objection he expects.
- Romans 7Chapter 7 addresses the role of the law in the new life.
- Romans 8Chapter 8 is the climax Paul has been building toward since chapter 1.
- Romans 9Chapter 9 opens the three-chapter meditation on Israel — the hardest sustained argument in the letter.
- Romans 10Chapter 10 continues the argument of chapter 9 but shifts from divine sovereignty to human responsibility.
- Romans 11Chapter 11 brings the three-chapter meditation on Israel to its resolution.
- Romans 12Chapter 12 opens the practical movement of the letter with the word therefore, gathering everything from chapters 1-11 into a single imperative.
- Romans 13Chapter 13 contains the verses that have generated more controversy in the history of Romans' reception than any other passage in the letter.
- Romans 14Chapter 14 addresses a concrete dispute in the Roman church.
- Romans 15Chapter 15 continues directly from chapter 14.
- Romans 16Chapter 16 is the longest closing greeting in any of Paul's letters.