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9. God's Sovereign Choice

¹ I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— ² I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, ⁴ the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. ⁵ Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Or Messiah, who is over all. God be forever praised! Or Messiah. God who is over all be forever praised! Amen.

God’s Sovereign Choice

⁶ It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. ⁷ Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” Gen. 21:12 ⁸ In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. ⁹ For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.” Gen. 18:10,14

¹⁰ Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. ¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: ¹² not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Gen. 25:23 ¹³ Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” Mal. 1:2,3

¹⁴ What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! ¹⁵ For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Exodus 33:19

¹⁶ It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. ¹⁷ For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Exodus 9:16 ¹⁸ Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

¹⁹ One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” ²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Isaiah 29:16; 45:9 ²¹ Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

²² What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³ What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— ²⁴ even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵ 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,” Hosea 2:23

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.’” Hosea 1:10

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.” Isaiah 10:22,23 (see Septuagint)

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.” Isaiah 1:9

Israel’s Unbelief

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.” Isaiah 8:14; 28:16

28. For I will finish and shorten the matter, etc. ³¹²³¹²     Sermonem enim consummans et abbrevians,” etc.; Λόγον γὰρ, etc. It is literally the Septuagint except in two instances: Paul puts in γὰρ, and substitutes ἐπὶ τὢς γὢς for ἐν τὣ οἰκουμένὟ ὅλὟ. It is a difficult passage in Hebrew: but the following rendering will make it materially consistent with the words of the Apostle, who evidently did not intend to give the words literally.
   A destruction, soon executed,
Shall overflow in righteousness;
For completed and soon executed shall it be;
The Lord, Jehovah of hosts, shall do it,
In the midst of the whole land.
   The word rendered above “soon executed,” means literally, abbreviated or cut short, signifying the quick execution of a thing or work. “Shall overflow in righteousness,” imports, “shall justly or deservedly overflow.” — Ed. Omitting various interpretations, I will state what appears to me to be the real meaning: The Lord will so cut short, and cut off his people, that the residue may seem as it were a consumption, that is, may have the appearance and the vestige of a very great ruin. However, the few who shall remain from the consumption shall be a proof of the work of God’s righteousness, or, what I prefer, shall serve to testify the righteousness of God throughout the world. As word often in Scripture means a thing, the consummated word is put for consumption. Many interpreters have here been grossly mistaken, who have attempted to philosophize with too much refinement; for they have imagined, that the doctrine of the gospel is thus called, because it is, when the ceremonies are cut off, a brief compendium of the law; though the word means on the contrary a consumption. ³¹³³¹³     There are many venerable names in favour of this opinion, such as Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, etc. Not knowing the Hebrew language, they attached a classical meaning to the expression, λόγον συντετμημένον, wholly at variance with what the Hebrew means, as Calvin justly observes. The word, συντετμημένον, in this passage, as Schleusner says, bears a meaning different from what it has in the classics; it imports what is cut short, that is, quickly executed. — Ed. And not only here is an error committed by the translator, but also in Isaiah 10:22, 23; Isaiah 28:22; and in Ezekiel 11:13; where it is said, “Ah! ah! Lord God! wilt thou make a completion of the remnant of Israel?” But the Prophets meant to say, “Wilt thou destroy the very remnant with utter destruction?” And this has happened through the ambiguity of the Hebrew word. For as the word, כלה, cale, means to finish and to perfect, as well as to consume, this difference has not been sufficiently observed according to the passages in which it occurs.

But Isaiah has not in this instance adopted one word only, but has put down two words, consumption, and termination, or cutting off; so that the affectation of Hebraism in the Greek translator was singularly unseasonable; for to what purpose was it to involve a sentence, in itself clear, in an obscure and figurative language? It may be further added, that Isaiah speaks here hyperbolically; for by consumption he means diminution, such as is wont to be after a remarkable slaughter.