Worthy He has been, worthy He will be, crowned in Majesty.
”My glory fills all the earth, although you don’t see it clearly it is there all along. When you come to Me one day My glory will be visible to everyone who is there and you will be able to taste the glory I have set aside for you, and then you will remember Paul’s words, “I consider our present suffering as not woth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us”. Your joy will comlete it’s full circle. The moments of ecstacy in your life were only a foretaste of the glory you will experience continually with Me. Live in that reality”
After the magificent chapter 8, Paul now moves on to a new subject. In the next 3 chapters He will confront the confusion and misunderstandings which prevent the Jews and Gentiles from being unified into one true “Body of Christ”. His first step is to highlight God’s souvereignty. This chapter 9 is often hard for people to accept about God, but is important in understanding who He is and how He operates. Please read Ch 9:1-13.
Paul’s opening words show how much this subject is distressing Him. Remember he is a hebrew of Hebrews and watching his fellow Jews rejecting Christ and falling under God’s judgement is extremely painful for Him. They have had all the advantages God gave them to prepare them for Christ’s coming, yet have rejected Him. He mentions 8 – adoption, divine glory, the covenants, the law, temple worship, the promises, the patriarchs, these were all shadows pointing forward to the coming One who is God in a human form. The statement in vs 5 is an extremely important reminder of Christ’s true identity: “Christ who is God over all”.
Then he picks up the same argument from ch 4, that physical descent from Abraham does not mean salvation for all, but only those who have believed God’s promise would be saved, vs 8 “It is not the natural children who are God’s children but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as the offspring of Abraham.” In other words it is only thosewho believed the promise that were saved.
But now Paul brings in another dimension to the argument. The dimension of God’s souvereign election vs 11. In other words, God always determined that there would be some who would believe and others who would reject Him, even when He made His promises in the very beginning. What we are faced with here is the startling fact that this division was already part of His plan from the beginning. From a human perspective this seems so unfair or in Paul’s words in vs 14 “unjust”. To address that we will have to wait till next week as Paul continues on this subject.
This concept of God’s election can sometimes have a negative effect on people, especially when it comes to evangelisation.The argument being, “why do the trouble to share God’s love with others if the outcome has already been determined?” Paul foresees that and addresses. it in detail in chapter 10, wait for it.
One thing that this doctrine should do is to give each one of us who have received the new birth the wonderful assurance of complete inseperability from God and His love, as laid out in the previous chapter. You and I are part of those whom He had chosen from the very beginning.
Bless you all till next week