…of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God. Amen.
Romans 9:5
The Apostle Paul was hurting when he wrote this section of Romans. He realized that the Jewish people were eternally lost because they had rejected their Messiah and he was grieving the loss. They could be saved if they repented of their denial of Christ and embraced Him as Lord, but for a huge number of those who heard the gospel, it wasn’t happening. How much more serious could it be? The man they had crucified was God incarnate, the Eternally Blessed God.
Herein lies the great irony. The Eternal God came to this world to be able to bless Adam’s sinful race with everlasting life. However, to reject this gift of the Savior’s sacrifice outright is to be cursed forever with separation from God. The saddest part of all is that many of the early Jewish leaders, who handed the Savior over for torture and death, did so thinking they were doing the work of God.
As Paul preached the gospel in the pagan world, it wasn’t usually the polytheists who shouted him down, but the expatriate Jewish leaders living in the Greek speaking world. Again, they convinced themselves of their own righteousness and assumed they were doing the will of God. They were tragically wrong and sadly deceived because they were following the direction of the god of this world and not the Eternally Blessed God.
Just like Paul, Christians should feel sad and burdened that the lost are going to hell, but they should be careful not to think it is not their fault that they made bad choices. Just like ol’ Pharaoh and Judas Iscariot, Christ- rejecters don’t flip a coin and pick wrong. They go through life, refusing to acknowledge the sovereignty of God and respond repeatedly to their sinful desires even though they generally reap bad consequences from these choices. They have purposefully and methodically believed the “father of lies” throughout their lives and resist the still small voice of God.
People are saved by agreeing with the Eternally Blessed God that they are hopeless sinners, rather than trying to explain or justify their actions.
October 19
