New Living Translation

New King James Version

God’s Selection of Israel

With Christ as my witness, I speak with utter truthfulness. My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.

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Israel’s Rejection of Christ

I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit,

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My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief

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that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart.

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for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters.a I would be willing to be forever cursed — cut off from Christ! — if that would save them.

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For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my [a]countrymen according to the flesh,

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They are the people of Israel, chosen to be God’s adopted children.b God revealed his glory to them. He made covenants with them and gave them his law. He gave them the privilege of worshiping him and receiving his wonderful promises.

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who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises;

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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are their ancestors, and Christ himself was an Israelite as far as his human nature is concerned. And he is God, the one who rules over everything and is worthy of eternal praise! Amen.c

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of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.

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Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promise to Israel? No, for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God’s people!

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Israel’s Rejection and God’s Purpose

But it is not that the word of God has taken no effect. For they are not all Israel who are of Israel,

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Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. For the Scriptures say, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted,”d though Abraham had other children, too.

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nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham; but, “In Isaac your seed shall be called.”

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This means that Abraham’s physical descendants are not necessarily children of God. Only the children of the promise are considered to be Abraham’s children.

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That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

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For God had promised, “I will return about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”e

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For this is the word of promise: “At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son.”

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This son was our ancestor Isaac. When he married Rebekah, she gave birth to twins.f

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And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one man, even by our father Isaac

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But before they were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. (This message shows that God chooses people according to his own purposes;

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(for the children not yet being born, nor having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of Him who calls),

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he calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, “Your older son will serve your younger son.”g

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it was said to her, “The older shall serve the younger.”

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In the words of the Scriptures, “I loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.”h

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As it is written, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.”

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Are we saying, then, that God was unfair? Of course not!

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Israel’s Rejection and God’s Justice

What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!

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For God said to Moses,
“I will show mercy to anyone I choose,
and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.”i

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For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

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So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.

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So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

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For the Scriptures say that God told Pharaoh, “I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you and to spread my fame throughout the earth.”j

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For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”

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So you see, God chooses to show mercy to some, and he chooses to harden the hearts of others so they refuse to listen.

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Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.

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Well then, you might say, “Why does God blame people for not responding? Haven’t they simply done what he makes them do?”

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You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”

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No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?”

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But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”

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When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?

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Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

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In the same way, even though God has the right to show his anger and his power, he is very patient with those on whom his anger falls, who are destined for destruction.

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What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

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He does this to make the riches of his glory shine even brighter on those to whom he shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.

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and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,

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And we are among those whom he selected, both from the Jews and from the Gentiles.

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even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?

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Concerning the Gentiles, God says in the prophecy of Hosea,
“Those who were not my people,
I will now call my people.
And I will love those
whom I did not love before.”k

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As He says also in Hosea:
“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”

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And,
“Then, at the place where they were told,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called
‘children of the living God.’”l

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“And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”

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And concerning Israel, Isaiah the prophet cried out,
“Though the people of Israel are as numerous as the sand of the seashore,
only a remnant will be saved.

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Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
The remnant will be saved.

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For the LORD will carry out his sentence upon the earth
quickly and with finality.”m

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For [b]He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
Because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”

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And Isaiah said the same thing in another place:
“If the LORD of Heaven’s Armies
had not spared a few of our children,
we would have been wiped out like Sodom,
destroyed like Gomorrah.”n

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And as Isaiah said before:
“Unless the Lord of [c]Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We would have become like Sodom,
And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”

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Israel’s Unbelief

What does all this mean? Even though the Gentiles were not trying to follow God’s standards, they were made right with God. And it was by faith that this took place.

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Present Condition of Israel

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith;

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But the people of Israel, who tried so hard to get right with God by keeping the law, never succeeded.

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but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law [d]of righteousness.

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Why not? Because they were trying to get right with God by keeping the lawo instead of by trusting in him. They stumbled over the great rock in their path.

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Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, [e]by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone.

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God warned them of this in the Scriptures when he said,
“I am placing a stone in Jerusalemp that makes people stumble,
a rock that makes them fall.
But anyone who trusts in him
will never be disgraced.”q

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As it is written:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”

Parallel

New Living Translation

New King James Version

Romans 9

Romans 9