Hopefully, we have found it profitable in our lives to look through this chapter, at all of the deep, rich truths that are here and how they apply to our lives and how they bring in a very clear way the heart of the message of the Gospel of our salvation. Central to the remaining four verses is addressing the matter of unbelief.  

In order to reconcile unbelief, we first need to understand that it is simply the rejection of Jesus, blasphemy, and includes the denial of the sinful state of man.  It is not an intellectual issue, a matter of reason, but an issue of the heart, a heart that knows God exists, knows the law exists, sees God work, yet turns away, denying what is known and seen.  John Calvin said, “Unbelievers, as far as lies in their power, bind up the hands of God by their obstinacy; not that God is overcome, as if he were inferior, but because they do not permit him to display his power.”  It is this heart issue that Paul addresses in these remaining verses in Romans 9.

If anyone should have loved God it was Israel. Repeatedly in the bible we see God’s loving kindness and steadfast care of his chosen people. God has truly loved Israel, He has truly given His favor towards Israel…they have the law, the prophets, the promises, from them comes the Messiah, the Gospel was first preached to Israel, the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus was in their sight, in their land…God’s loving mercy has been showered upon them.  Yet, due to their obstinacy, Jesus became a stumbling block for them instead of a vision of mercy.  Truly, Jesus is a stumbling block to anyone, not just Israel, to anyone with unbelief.

There are two main points in these four verses on which we will focus: the Gentile’s possession of salvation and Israel’s position.  Interestingly, Israel thought they had possession of God’s salvation, yet they did not whereas, the Gentiles thought they did not have it, yet they did.  In these verses, what is the message from God regarding unbelief?

We trust God will give each individual within this congregation clarity of truth.  We trust God’s word will have its intended effect on the hearers of this message, both to the saved and to the unsaved, for the glory of God and for the good of this body.

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So, we begin today with a…

Gentile possession (v30) - “...Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith;”

The Gentiles had something they were not expecting, righteousness granted to them through faith, noticed by the church.  The unasked question Paul is addressing is why does it seem God is favoring the Gentiles over the Jews?  After all, they had no care for God’s righteousness, holiness, justice or being right with Him. They were pagan idol worshipers, atheists, agnostics, heathens loving the world, enjoying the lusts of the flesh.  As Ephesians 4:17 tells us, they operated in the futility of their minds.  Israel knew well that these Gentiles did not pursue God but watched them attain righteousness, possess this winning prize, despite not even looking for it, not even working for it, not even wanting it. We can compare this Gentile possession of salvation to that of an Olympic contestant who has trained many years, made great sacrifices to compete and then stands on the platform to obtain his gold medal yet, the medal is given to someone who did not train, make any sacrifices or even compete.  Israel was standing on the Olympic platform looking in disbelief, taking great offense.

But, why do the Gentiles have this salvation, why have they undeservedly been given this prize?  They possess it because God interrupted their lives, He pursued them, which speaks so clearly to our own salvation.  We were lost without God in the world, doing nothing to pursue God, doing nothing to seek after Him because we were, “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1).  We had no thought about or care for God.  It is not only that we did not want to pursue God, Romans 8:7 tells us we were hostile towards God.  Ephesians 2:3 reminds us how we were living our lives, like the rest of mankind, before God intervened.

This position that we were in then necessitated God pursue us, He initiated our salvation, demonstrated in Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, as found in Luke 15:1-7. Jesus actively goes after His lost sheep.  He actively finds what is lost.  The sheep wanders off and remains content without even knowing he is lost. When the sheep is found, the shepherd seeks him, He grants him righteousness that comes by faith.  If we are going to be saved, there has to be an activity of God coming after us who are unknowingly lost. It was this pursuit that yielded the righteousness in the Gentiles, granted to them by God through faith, which is the only way righteousness is received in a person’s life.  They were not looking for it; but, God brought it to them.  A possession of salvation attained by faith.  God sought after them.  He left the righteous and pursued the unrighteous..

From the human perspective, this activity of God made no sense that the Gentiles, no better an option for God, in no way seeking after Him, seemingly far worse in their moral lifestyles than Israel, having no knowledge of God’s law or His grace, were coming to salvation through faith.  Yet, this was the reality of what was taking place.

Following the Gentiles receiving righteousness by faith, brings us to ….

Israel’s position (v31-33) - “...Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.  32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 33 as it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

Looking at what God was doing with the Gentiles, Israel took great offense to God’s mercy.  Why?  Because they had…

• A perceived righteousness (v31) - thinking they had figured what God wanted from them, the Jews had created a religious system that was no more than perceived righteousness, their perception being borne out of their pursuit.  It cannot be denied Israel wholeheartedly pursued after righteousness of the law, establishing hundreds of their own laws in order to ensure they did not violate the established laws. This rigor did not go unnoticed by God (Matthew 23:24.)  Their problem was that they were pursuing the law “for” righteousness.  Mistakenly, they thought that in their obedience to the law they would receive the righteousness of God; however, what escaped their notice was that the law requires absolute perfection because it reflects the character of God. They did not reach this perfection because in the flesh it cannot be obtained, the reason the law exists.  The law has its effect and it exposes inability.  To be perfect, you must match the character of God (Matthew 5:48), which simply cannot be done.  James 2:10 tells us if you stumble at one point (of the law), then you are guilty of all of it…you cannot be partially perfect.

So, we arrive at Israel’s issue: they could not perfectly keep the law but they acted and thought as if they could.  They thought they could generate a system of (self) righteousness that would be acceptable to God.  In Matthew 23, Jesus condemns the Pharisees at least six times for their self-righteousness.  They ignored God’s Messiah while very carefully justifying themselves and all of their sin.  They had perfected religion absent of true righteousness, justification, salvation.  Is this any different from many in Christian churches, including this body?  Do we not in a similar fashion attempt to justify ourselves, to pursue righteousness, through righteous acts?

Paul is pointing out is that our lives expose who we perceive God to be and what we have determined is acceptable to Him.  In Matthew 15:8-9, Jesus quotes Isaiah, effectively telling us we want something from God but we do not love God and we make up our own system of righteousness, favoring religion over righteousness.  It is so very easy to fall into doing this because it is something tangible we can grab onto.  This begins to happen when we fail to see God’s inspired word as our sole authority in life.  2 Timothy 3:16 tells us God’s word speaks to everything in life that you will ever encounter.  When we move outside the boundaries of God’s word governing our lives, we are worshiping a false god, we cease to seek after the glory of God.

If you are not concerned with God’s holiness and His righteousness or how His truth points into your life and you are not asking the question, “is God pleased with me now”, you are moving outside the boundaries towards worshiping a false god, following your own law. 

Israel had established this perceived position of godliness, which was nothing more than self-righteousness, and they found themselves in…

A position of faithlessness (v32) - Israel ended up in this position because they pursued, upheld the law based on works (religion) not by faith (righteousness).  Israel loved their works, they loved the way their works presented them to the world and they could not understand how their system of righteousness could be overlooked by God.  How can it be possible that none of it matters?  Thus, they refused Gods’ simple means of salvation through Christ being received by the pagan Gentiles, seeing it as a great atrocity. They stumbled over Jesus, the “stone of stumbling” that God positioned directly in their paths.  In what ways did they stumble?  They stumbled over…

• Jesus’ target audience - the message was for sinners, outcasts, children, it was not just for the religious elite; it angered Israel to see Jesus dine with sinners to receive what they felt should have been for them.

• Jesus’ birth - it did not meet the self-developed standards they believed God should meet.  Jesus’ birth was the opposite of all they expected from their king, their Messiah, lacking grandeur, great glory.

• Jesus’ upbringing - a carpenter’s son from Nazareth from where nothing good comes.  He was unlearned, having no renowned Rabbi to instruct him, too common and too rural.

• Jesus’ appearance - Israel loved vain beauty over a contrite heart. We see in Isaiah 53:2-3 that there was nothing in the appearance of Jesus that presented itself as majestic.

• Jesus’ divinity - He was making himself equal with God, actually claiming to be God, speaking with God’s authority. 

• Jesus’ earthly mission - His kingdom was spiritual, they wanted earthly.  They did not see him building a kingdom in the way they felt a king should build an (earthly) kingdom.  He pronounced no judgment on Rome.

• Jesus’ disciples - unlearned, fishermen, tax collectors, harlots, people who have not worked for righteousness.

• Jesus’ zeal - He zealously confronted the Jews with how they were treating, dishonoring God’s house and they did not want to be told.

• Jesus’ death and resurrection - This humility, this weakness, this shame in the way he handled Himself during His arrest, imprisonment and death was absolute disdain to them.  We see in Matthew 27:40-42, how they mocked His power to heal, demanding He rescue Himself from the cross.  But the apex of their stumbling was in… 

• Jesus’ cross as the only way of salvation - They determined they would never lower themselves to the standard of putting their faith in a crucified, unsuspecting, son of a carpenter Jew.  Israel saw the Gospel to be foolishness, which God later addresses through Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25.  God determined the Gospel would not be according to the wisdom of man, salvation would not come through reason. God’s call will go out, seeming like foolishness, but His elect, those whom He has called, will respond.

The cross attacks the law and this is foolishness. The cross is the end of striving for self-atonement, works of man having no bearing on his righteousness.  Simply having faith, accepting the mercy of God, receiving God’s grace, does not make sense to people who are religious.  If Israel was to accept the Gospel, then they have to accept that the law was never meant to accomplish what they had so strategically established it to accomplish…righteousness.  They would have to humble themselves and admit defeat, that Christ, not their works, was the atonement for sin, and this was their greatest stumbling block. They would have to cry out to God to heal their unbelief; but, they would not.

Which brings us to Paul’s conclusion in verse 33, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense; and whoever believes in Him will not be put to shame.”  God’s word has not failed.  The stumbling over Christ occurs because He is not who the world wants Him to be.  The question before us is the same as it has always been: Who is Jesus to you?  Is He a stone of stumbling and you believe in your own acts of religion to determine your righteousness?  Do you believe all that Scripture tells us He is, all that He has done, all that He accomplished, all that He alone can accomplish?

Here in this verse, “Paul is saying that he is not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is God’s mighty working.  It is God himself doing the thing - not simply telling us about it: doing it, and doing it in this way, through the gospel..” (D.M. Lloyd Jones).  The Gospel is the mind of God, the work of God and we simply share in it and believe it and then we share it with others.  Do you believe in Jesus? Have you called on the name of the Lord for salvation?

But, we must circle back and again ask, what is this unbelief?  A person who holds on to some form of self-atonement.  In some way they have elevated their position over God’s, orchestrating their own method of salvation, fashioning their own god, determining what he desires of them and what they want him to accomplish.

The remaining question: What do we believe about God? A.W. Tozer said it best, “The most important thing about you is what comes to your mind when you think about God.”

SELAH:

• Is God’s word first and foremost on your mind when you make any decision or have any thought whatsoever?

• Are there any standards in your life that you have established that do not align with those of God's?

• In your handling, your treatment of Christ, do you demand He prove Himself to you before you will believe?

• Who is Jesus to you?