Sep
16
Written by:
Bob Flynn
9/16/2009 7:57 AM
The diligent perusal of the Holy Scriptures would discover to us our past ignorance. (William Wilburforce)
He proves the casting away of Esau in that he was made servant to his brother: and proves the choosing of Jacob in that he was made lord of his brother, although his brother was the first begotten. And in order that no man might take what God had said, and refer it to external things, the apostle shows out of Malachi, who is a good interpreter of Moses, that the servitude of Esau was joined with the hatred of God, and the lordship of Jacob with the love of God. (Geneva Bible Translation Notes)
In election, God exercises His sovereign will to accomplish His perfect plan. Keep in mind that the election discussed in Romans 9–11 is national and not individual. To apply all the truths of these chapters to the salvation or security of the individual believer is to miss their message completely. In fact, Paul carefully points out that he is discussing the Jews and Gentiles as peoples, not individual sinners. (Wiersbe, W. W. (1997, c1992). Wiersbe's expository outlines on the New Testament (391). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.)
These middle chapters of Romans have not been as popular as the rest. They shift from the meaning of Jesus’ death and endless life for us to other issues. And they introduce concepts over which Christians still debate.
Many of Paul’s readers in New Testament times were Jewish, and a Jew might well wonder if God was being righteous in justifying all by faith. After all, God had given Israel great covenant promises. And this Gospel of salvation by faith totally ignores the covenants. How could Paul dare to speak of as righteous the God who broke and ignored His ancient word? (Richards, L., & Richards, L. O. (1987). The teacher's commentary. Includes index. (827). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.)
it was said to her, "THE OLDER WILL SERVE THE YOUNGER." (Romans 9:12 NASB)
It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. (Romans 9:12 KJV)
it was said to her, "The older will serve the younger," (Romans 9:12 NET.)
He calls people, but not according to their good or bad works.) She was told, "Your older son will serve your younger son." (Romans 9:12 NLT)
One could easily make the observation here that Paul was writing something that was so far outside the pale of contemporary thought that the mere fact that he wrote it would provoke a visceral reaction on the part of the reader. Hence the problem of any literary or intellectual intercourse. One must assume that the reader or hearer is not interested in what you might say but rather is only interested in finding an imprimatur for what they already believe! Though, more often than not, they truly do not own their own beliefs but rather parrot what they have heard. Against these things the Apostle Paul endeavors to unveil the secret that has now been made known.
I have spent the last twenty years trying to find ownership in my own mind for my beliefs. Not only so but to earnestly endeavor to understand what others in the body of Christ believe and why they believe it. It is a wondrous but treacherous journey. Wondrous in that I learn many new things. Treacherous in that I discover my own paradigms and prejudices. Learning, by its nature, is cumulative. Therefore, our understanding is dependant upon what we have learned before as we are learning now. A problem arises when what we have learned before is incomplete or incorrect.
Here by its very nature is a provocation unto the Jews! Can you imagine what their reaction would be on the cable news broadcast? Paul would have been vilified! He would be verbally scourged worse than those nominated to the United States Supreme Court. He would have been "Borked!" Isn't that what we Christians do to our own? We get angry even though the Bible says that our anger avails not the things of God. We try to fool ourselves into thinking that our anger is really righteous indignation because after all Jesus got angry when He cleansed the temple. However, we fail to realize that Jesus is God and His anger does avail. How then can we be angry while at the same time thinking to highly of ourselves and considering the other person more highly? We forget the example of Christ on the Calvary Cross where he made himself nothing, became a slave and died a criminal's death (Philippians 2). To become a Christian is to become nothing so that we can become something in Christ. We cannot cling to position, ancestry nor any other thing for we have reckoned ourselves dead (Romans 6). Paul is challenging heritage and all of its components here (prerogatives, perquisites, paradigms and prejudice). We should then ask ourselves am I a Presbyterian (Calvinist), Evangelical Anabaptist, Free Will Baptist (Arminian) because I have studied the theological distinctive or do I just believe it because that's the way I was raised and my pastor said so? In addition to owning what I believe am I able to fully understand, articulate and appreciate what my dear brothers and sisters believe? If not then the enemy has already won and used us to do his bidding!
As a child, Wilberforce lived for awhile with a Methodist aunt, and knew evangelist George Whitefield and reformed slave trader John Newton (writer of the hymn Amazing Grace). After graduating from Cambridge and being elected to Parliament, he rediscovered the faith of his youth and became involved in the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical members of the Anglican church. Wilberforce took advice from Newton to use his position in Parliament to improve morality in government and among the upper classes. He was also instrumental in opening India to Christian missionaries and in founding the British and Foreign Bible Society.
A Member of Parliament from 1780-1825, Wilberforce dedicated his life to leading the abolitionist movement in England and, after decades of effort and lobbying, succeeded in seeing the slave trade outlawed throughout the British Empire. Three days before he died, Parliament passed a law freeing all the slaves in Britain and her colonies.
The truth is, their opinions on these subjects are not formed from the perusal of the word of God. The Bible lies on the shelf unopened; and they would be wholly ignorant of its contents, except for what they hear occasionally at church, or for the faint traces which their memories may still retain of the lessons of their earliest infancy….When God has of his goodness vouchsafed to grant us such abundant means of instruction in that which we are most concerned to know, how great must be the guilt, and how awful the punishment of voluntary ignorance! And why, it may be asked, are we in this pursuit alone to expect knowledge without inquiry, and success without endeavor? The whole analogy of nature inculcates on us a different lesson, and our own judgments in matters of temporal interests and worldly policy confirm the truth of her suggestions. Bountiful as is the hand of Providence, its gifts are not so bestowed as to seduce us into indolence, but to rouse us to exertion; and no one expects to attain to the height of learning, or arts, or power, or wealth, or military glory, without vigorous resolution, and strenuous diligence, and steady perseverance. Yet we expect to be Christians without labor, study, or inquiry. This is the more preposterous, because Christianity, being a revelation from God, and not the invention of man, discovering to us new relations, with their correspondent duties; containing also doctrines, and motives, and practical principles, and rules, peculiar to itself, and almost as new in their nature as supreme in their excellence, we cannot reasonably expect to become proficients in it by the accidental intercourses of life, as one might learn insensibly the maxims of worldly policy, or a scheme of mere morals.
The diligent perusal of the Holy Scriptures would discover to us our past ignorance. We should cease to be deceived by superficial appearances, and to confound the Gospel of Christ with the systems of philosophers; we should become impressed with that weighty truth, so much forgotten, and never to be too strongly insisted on, that Christianity calls on us, as we value our immortal souls, not merely in general, to be religious and moral, but specially to believe the doctrines, and imbibe the principles, and practice the precepts of Christ. (William Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing)
Copyright ©2009 Robert Flynn