The Purpose of God’s Sovereignty

We have seen in the last blog that God in His sovereignty can select whom He wants and that He had chosen the Gentiles as Abraham’s children in faith, having rejected the unbelieving Israel from His inheritance. We will see more of His Sovereign plan in Romans 9:22-29.

Paul goes on to explain that although some people were the objects of God’s anger and ripe and ready for destruction, He tolerated them patiently. These people were prepared for destruction, as objects of his wrath. Such people, who rejected the provision God made for man’s deliverance from sin, would be shut out from the presence of God and from the majesty of His power. 2 Thessalonians 1:9; 2 Thessalonians 2:12.

God would do this to make His glory known to the objects of His mercy, whom He has prepared in advance. Paul here refers to the selected Jews, who accepted Christ as the Messiah and the selected Gentiles, who put their faith in Christ for their salvation. It is because of His love for us that He took such measures to save us by sending His Beloved Son. John 3:16.

So, in verses 22 through 24 Paul is saying that the purpose of God’s sovereignty is to make His power made known to those who are lost and to make His mercy known to those who accept His provision for salvation. Though the first century Jews wanted the Gentiles to be saved only through Judaism, the saving grace of God was and is available not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles, directly through Jesus Christ. This is relevant to you and me today.

The freedom of choice which is the inalienable right of God, was exercised in constituting a ‘New Israel.’ This, Paul shows, is in accordance with the prophecy of the Old Testament Prophets. Paul quotes Hosea 2:23 to show that God called ‘my people,’ some people who ‘are not His people.’ The prophecy further shows God saying, “I will call her ‘my loved one,’ who is not my loved one.” This is applied to the Gentiles who accepted Christ in faith and become His people.

Paul goes on to quote Hosea 1:10 to reiterate his point. In the very place where is was said to the Gentiles that they were not His people, they will now be called, ‘sons of the living God,’ because they accepted Jesus Christ, the provision of salvation by God. 

Further, quoting Isaiah 10:22, 23, Paul shows that though Jews had the promise to increase like the sand by the sea which is innumerable, only a few, ‘a remnant’ will be saved, for God’s judgment will overtake them. Paul himself saw this happening, when he went around in the Roman world, preaching in the synagogues. Only a few Jews accepted Christ as their Saviour.   

In Isaiah 1:9, the prophet laments that except that the Lord through His mercy left a posterity for Israel, they also would have been destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 19:24-25. In Revelation 11:8, the bodies of the two witnesses of God would lie in the streets of the great city, Jerusalem, figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. That was the extent to which Jerusalem and Jews would reject Christ and His witnesses. 

However, all is not lost, for there will still be left a remnant, just like the 7000 Jews whom God had kept for Himself, who had not kissed the god of Canaanites, Baal. 1 King 19:18. Similarly in Israel also will be left some remnants, who will accept Christ in faith, which will again be due to the mercy of God alone.

So, Paul’s argument goes like this: God had purposed blessings to His chosen people, the Israelites. But He has absolute right to do what He wants in His sovereignty. As such He willed that His people will be composed of a remnant of Israel together with selected Gentiles. This will constitute the New Israel and to them will accrue all the promised blessings of God. This will mean the complete fulfilment of the original promise God had made to Abraham and his descendants. Genesis 12:1-3.

This would also mean that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, obtained a righteousness that is by faith. Romans 1:17. On the contrary, Israel who pursued a law of righteousness through the Law of Moses, did not attain it. It was because Israel thought they could buy salvation of God by doing works, the observance of the Law.

Jews had a worthy goal, to honour God, but they chose to do that by rigid and painful obedience to the Law, by which they became more dedicated to the Law than to God who gave the Law. They forgot salvation is by faith and not by works. Abraham got righteousness credited to him for his faith, belief in God and His promises and not for any work. Genesis 15:6.

We sometimes behave like the Jews, trying to get right with God by keeping His laws – attending the church, getting busy with church activities, giving offerings, being nice and so on. We seem to have done all the right things and played by the rule. What we do not grasp is, we cannot earn the favour of God by being good; we need to depend on Christ, our Saviour and faith in what He did and accomplished for us on the cross.

A Jew tried to put God under debt; according to his logic, God owed them salvation, because they observed the Law. But a Gentile was content to be indebted to God for His provision of salvation in Christ. Paul’s principle of ‘a righteousness by faith,’ operated here and explained the paradox of God’s selection and election.

Paul’s final analogy was that of ‘the stumbling stone,’ in verses 32-33. Isaiah 8:14 mentions “a stone that caused men to stumble and a rock that made them fall.” In Isaiah 28:16, the prophecy is much more explicit. The Sovereign Lord says, “I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation.” And ‘the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’

In quoting these two verses, Paul is referring directly to the Lord Jesus Christ, who said of himself, quoting Psalm 118:22,23, as “the stone the builders rejected which has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” Matthew 21:42. Together these are mentioned in 1 Peter 2:4, as a “living stone-rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to Him.”

Jesus mentioned this at the end of narrating his parable of the wicked tenants, to indicate the vineyard will be rented out by the owner to other tenants, taking it away from the wicked tenants, who even killed the legitimate son of the owner, plotting to grab the vineyard to themselves. The stone rejected by the Jews, Jesus, became the cornerstone of the whole building in God's plan. 

Daniel 2:34-35, and 44-45, talk of “a rock cut out not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them.” This rock symbolized the Messiah and his eternal Kingdom, which is to come, would smash all the other kingdoms of the earth.

All these prophecies have been fulfilled in Christ, who was rejected by his own people, but was exalted by God. The church he established, started off with humble beginnings, but has become a worldwide phenomenon, foretelling His Kingdom.

Jews rejected Jesus, because they were looking for a glorified and reigning Messiah and not a suffering and crucified Messiah. They looked for a Messiah, who will free them politically from the Romans, and not the one who would save them from their sins as foretold in Matthew 1:21.

In the crux, Paul’s stand is, what the religious man missed by his works, the sinner received by faith in Christ.

Do we put our faith in works or in Christ? 

We need to examine our motives and actions, for Jesus is the touchstone by which all men are judged.