How does God choose some to be special vessels and others not? Are the chosen people Jews or Christians or both? Let’s begin by asking, did Paul love his fellow Jews?
I’m speaking the truth in Christ—I’m not lying, as my conscience assures me with the Holy Spirit: 2 I have great sadness and constant pain in my heart. 3 I wish I could be cursed, cut off from Christ if it helped my brothers and sisters, who are my flesh-and-blood relatives. (Romans 9:1-3 CEB)
Did God choose (that is elect) physical Israel?
They are the descendants of Israel, and they are also God's chosen people. God showed them his glory. He made agreements with them and gave them his Law. The temple is theirs and so are the promises that God made to them. 5 They have those famous ancestors, who were also the ancestors of the Christ. I pray that God, who rules over all, will be praised forever! Amen. (Romans 9:4-5 CEV)
Is there another Israel, children of the promise?
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. (Romans 9:6-8 ESV)
Did Paul earlier teach about two Israels, one in the flesh and another of the heart?
For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. 29 On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That man’s praise is not from men but from God. (Romans 2:28-29 HCSB)
Could this Israel by the Spirit be like the child of promise?
For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. 10 And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; 11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election [God’s choice] might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) (Romans 9:9-11 KJV)
Is this a prophecy of the two nations descended from the two individuals? Could this also picture the older child as physical Israel and the younger as spiritual Israel?
it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” (Romans 9:12 NASB)
Could Esau picture fleshly Israel and Jacob spiritual Israel, Christian Jews and Gentiles?
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. (Romans 9:13 KJV cf. Malachi 1:1-4)
Did God literally “hate”?
… God is love … (1 John 4:16)
Could it be a colloquialism like Jesus used, meaning to love less by comparison?
Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters—yes, even one’s own life—cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-28)
Is God unjust?
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! (Romans 9:14 NKJV)
3 examples explain this: mercy, hard hearts and vessels.
1) Mercy
How did God explain His mercy to Moses, after Moses prayed that all Israel be spared despite their idolatry?
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I have mercy, and I will show compassion to whomever I show compassion.” (Romans 9:15 NASB cp. Exodus 32:28-30; 33:19)
Is God’s mercy a gift or something we work for?
So then, it does not depend on the person who wants it nor the one who runs, but on God who has mercy. (Romans 9:16 NASB)
Do we and God both have a part? Whose is the bigger part?
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7 NKJV)
2) Hard Hearts
Did God bring Pharaoh to the throne for a purpose? Was God giving Pharaoh up to a hard heart arbitrarily or because Pharaoh had already had numerous chances and hardened his own heart?
For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I caused you to be raised up, that I might show in you my power, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires. (Romans 9:17-18 WEB cp. Exodus 9:16)
Do we trust God’s will or try to resist it?
So you are going to say to me, “Then why does he still blame people? Who has ever resisted his will?” (Romans 9:19 CEB)
3) Vessels
Has fleshly Israel become a vessel of dishonor and spiritual Israel a vessel of honor?
But, my friend, I ask, “Who do you think you are to question God? Does the clay have the right to ask the potter why he shaped it the way he did? 21 Doesn't a potter have the right to make a fancy bowl and a plain bowl out of the same lump of clay?” (Romans 9:20-21 CEV)
Is God’s decision regarding vessels of honor or dishonor arbitrary, or based upon our decision to obey or disobey?
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. (2 Timothy 2:20-21 ESV)
Are we the vessels of honor?
And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction? 23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory— 24 on us, the ones He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (Romans 9:22-24 HCSB)
Is law-righteousness or faith-righteousness the answer? In whom must we put our faith, Jesus, the rock of stumbling?
As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” 26 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 God.’” 27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. 28 For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” 29 It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” 30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” (Romans 9:25-33 NIV)
If anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use. Of course we need God’s help, but the decision is ours. Jesus knocks, but we let Him in. Jesus calls, but we answer. What do you choose? You decide!
