Romans 9:6-13

Coram Deo Reformed Baptist Church iconCoram Deo Reformed Baptist Church

0 views

0 comments

00:09
If you look really close, I have hair too. You really got to.
00:21
You really got to bring that up. Alrighty.
00:30
Romans, chapter 9. Today we'll be going through verses 6 through 13.
00:38
There's a larger chunk, and I would have loved to have broken it down and taken quite a bit of time in here, but it all runs together.
00:51
So as we normally do, I'll start in verse 1, and we'll read through to where we're at.
01:00
Paul says, I am speaking the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience bears me witness in the
01:07
Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
01:21
They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
01:37
To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race according to the flesh is the
01:42
Christ who is God over all, blessed forever, amen. But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
01:53
For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
02:07
But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
02:23
For this is what the promise said, about this time next year I will return and Sarah shall have a son.
02:32
And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather
02:38
Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older shall serve the younger.
03:00
As it is written, Jacob I loved, and Esau I hated.
03:09
Now remember we spoke about the history of the book of Romans before we started, we were the very first chapter and now we're about half way through, it's a good time for a refresher on this.
03:24
Paul wrote Romans in around 57 -58 AD. Rome was also a church that was started by converted
03:39
Jews, by ethnic Jews who had been in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks at the time of Pentecost.
03:46
They were there for that, and they had heard the gospel preached, and had the
03:55
Holy Spirit come upon them and show them the truth, and they had taken this back to Rome with them.
04:04
For a while you had Messianic Jews believing, practicing Jews, and you had believing
04:13
Gentile proselytes, so Gentiles who had converted to Judaism and then saw the truth as well by the power of the
04:20
Holy Spirit. You also had Gentile Christians. Now what we did not discuss last time was that in 49
04:31
AD the ethnic Jews were expelled from Rome.
04:39
They were ordered to leave by Emperor Claudius as a blanket decree to settle political unrest.
04:51
The Jews had special privileges. They were seen as a right religion, as an official religion in Rome at the time.
05:02
They were recognized, and that gave them privileges like Sabbath privileges and other things.
05:08
They weren't willing to risk those privileges by all of these Gentiles becoming
05:16
Christian. What if they want to share our privileges? So there was some unrest.
05:23
Well, as the Romans do, they generally blanket a problem. What's the blanket solution here?
05:29
Well, Claudius' solution was to just get rid of ethnic Jews, so that's what he did.
05:37
You see this in Acts 18 verses 2 and 3. It says, There he became acquainted with a
05:43
Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife
05:50
Priscilla. They had left Italy when Claudius Caesar deported all
05:55
Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tentmakers, just as he was.
06:05
Now, a Roman decree is only so good as long as the emperor stays alive to enforce it.
06:15
So in 54 AD, Claudius dies, and with him, any authority over that edict.
06:20
So now you have ethnic Jews beginning to return to Rome.
06:28
Well, since 49, the only people left, the only
06:33
Christians left in those churches, those small Christian communities, to lead the churches were
06:41
Gentiles, were Gentile Christians. There were no ethnic Jews there that had converted.
06:47
But these ethnic Jews who were
06:52
Christians begin to return, and within just four years, you see these issues that Paul is having to address in the epistle to the
07:04
Romans. This difference between Gentile Christians and believing
07:09
Jews have become so pronounced that he has to deal with them before he wants to go to Spain.
07:18
This is why you also see this ebb back and forth between Gentiles.
07:25
He addresses Gentiles, and then the Jews, and then back, and he addresses everybody, and it's sort of this back and forth flow of him addressing both groups.
07:37
You see where he, in the beginning of the epistle, where both Jews and Gentiles, he points out that they both have sin, that they both need salvation, and then that ultimately that salvation settles on God and His sovereignty and predestination alone in chapter 8.
08:01
And also remember as we go into this that we have been through chapters 1 and 8, and in those,
08:09
Paul has been pointing to the sovereignty of God throughout from chapter 1 all the way through chapter 8.
08:18
He's been making truth claims about it, and hinting at it, and pointing to it, culminating in chapter 8.
08:28
This is elect people ultimately have nothing to worry about because our salvation is secure in God's sovereignty.
08:36
And then as we begin chapter 9, as we went through last week, Paul has lamented about his fellow kinsmen in the flesh having been given all that they had been given, and yet they had rejected the promised
08:51
Messiah. So here in the beginning of this section,
08:58
Paul heads off one of the first and perhaps one of the most obvious objections to enter the mind.
09:06
Verse 6, it says, But it is not as though the word of God has failed.
09:19
The word of God cannot fail. That would make God a liar, and God cannot lie.
09:29
It's not a matter of permission. It's a matter of ability, as we discussed before. He cannot. You can't be the being that speaks everything into existence that is literally the truth and lie.
09:44
It's not possible. Paul here is heading off this objection because of his previous statements.
10:00
If God promised all of these things to the ethnic Jews and then didn't follow through, then that must mean that God is unfaithful.
10:11
What Paul would say, as he says many times, may it never be. Remember, way back in chapter 2,
10:23
Paul's addressed this already. He's just coming back to something he's already talked about before. In chapter 2, verses 28 and 29, he says,
10:30
For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.
10:40
But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter, speaking of the law.
10:51
His praise is not from man, but from God. Keep that in mind as we go into these next verses.
11:08
This is the rest of verse 6. It says, For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
11:24
But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.
11:42
This was the flaw of the theology promoted at the time, was that you were a
11:52
Jew, and because you were a Jew, you were secure. All you had to do was keep the law.
12:02
In Rome, there were Messianic Jews that kept the law. Paul addresses this in this epistle multiple times.
12:11
It is not by works, but by faith. What is he getting at here that not all are descendants?
12:25
Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.
12:35
This is not physically possible. Physically, it's not possible. If ethnically, you are a descendant of Abraham, you're a descendant of Abraham.
12:49
If you're born in Israel and are an Israelite, then you're an
12:54
Israelite. This is Paul speaking, a Pharisee, someone who is both an
13:01
Israelite, one of the highest orders at the time, and a
13:09
Roman. He enjoys much privilege in those two things.
13:21
So if it's physically impossible, then he must be talking about it spiritually. This must be a spiritual issue that Paul is speaking about, much like the one that Jesus points out to Nicodemus.
13:38
You must be born again. Nicodemus has no idea what he's talking about.
13:45
What am I, to crawl back into my mother's womb? No, you must be born again of the
13:53
Spirit of the water. What Paul is referring to here, when he says not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, is the
14:09
Israel of God. We don't use that term anymore.
14:17
The most common term that is used in the Reformed church is the elect. The other term that is used for the elect is the church.
14:29
The true church. The bride of Christ. Those who are saved by faith.
14:39
The true Israel of God are those who follow after Abraham. Paul has addressed this already.
14:47
Those who follow after Abraham and his faith in God. Also remember that this epistle, that the epistles are just as divinely inspired.
15:05
I want you to keep that in mind, because that's something that seems to be forgotten, not of this crowd necessarily, but in general in the church, especially here in America, is that some scripture is more important than others.
15:24
The red letters are just as authoritative as the epistles, and the epistles are just as authoritative as the red letters.
15:34
The Old Testament is just as authoritative as the New Testament.
15:39
It is all God -breathed. So you can't pick and choose or decide that this apostle is correct, and this one is kind of wishy -washy.
15:54
You can't do that. If you're going to do that with that kind of logical consistency, then just throw the whole book out.
16:03
Because if one part of the book is wrong, the entire book is wrong.
16:10
Keep that in mind as we go through. Also I'll point out the fact that Paul is not the only one that talks about this.
16:19
In John 1, verses 12 and 13, But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
16:31
All who received him became, he gave the right to become the children of God.
16:37
Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
16:49
Matthew 3, verse 7 through 9,
16:56
But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them,
17:02
You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
17:09
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and do not presume to say to yourselves,
17:15
We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
17:24
In other words, that's not an excuse you get to have. You don't get to use that one.
17:34
And in John 8, verse 41 through 44,
17:43
We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me.
17:53
For I came from God, and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
18:02
Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
18:08
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
18:22
So Christ, preeminently, John the Baptist, Matthew, and John are making it clear here that people aren't saved because of where they're born or who they're born to.
18:40
And Paul is reiterating this to the church in Rome.
18:48
Going back to the history of Abraham for a moment, Abraham had two sons,
18:53
Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael born to Hagar, and Isaac born to Sarah.
19:01
And yes, I say Sarah. Now what
19:06
Paul is pointing out here, with Sarah, Abraham's wife, she became jealous of Hagar and her son,
19:16
Ishmael, and she had asked or beseeched
19:21
Abraham to send them away. Abraham hesitates because Ishmael is his son.
19:30
Well, God comes to Abraham and says in Genesis 21, 12, and 13,
19:37
Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.
19:42
Whatever Sarah says to do, do as she tells you.
19:47
For through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.
20:07
What Paul is saying here about the historical narrative is it is
20:14
God's sovereign election, not the firstborn, not the oldest, not the strongest.
20:26
It is the one that God chooses. Remember, Sarah can't have children. She's too old.
20:39
And we see how he references back to that in the very next verse.
20:45
He says, And for this is what the promise said, about this time next year
20:51
I will return, and Sarah shall have a son. But surely he is talking about nations or inherited blessings here in this section.
21:05
He's not talking about that. To come to that conclusion here in Romans 9, you have to remove it from the rest of Roman and what
21:17
Paul has already talked about. He's been leading up to this point, but he's only talking about the
21:24
God's sovereignty and individual election. And to come to that conclusion that it's about something completely different, you've got to pull it out.
21:34
You have to pull this section out of not just Romans, but Romans 9. The whole rest of Romans 9.
21:46
We haven't gotten to what he says later. It's a lot more heavy than what we're talking about now.
21:52
But what he's talking about is the election of individuals, one over the other.
22:13
Going back to Romans 8, very quickly. 29 and 30.
22:19
For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
22:30
And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.
22:39
Paul's already set this up. This book is a whole, and we are not allowed to separate it for any reason.
22:58
The other thing that I would like to take the time to point out here is that Isaac is a type.
23:05
Now, you might not be familiar with that term, but what that term means is that Isaac is a sort of living foreshadowing of the one to come.
23:23
Take a look at the age of Sarah at the time. She was well past childbearing age. The only reason that she even bore
23:30
Isaac in the first place was because of the power of God.
23:39
God promised that he would give Abraham a son, and he did. And then
23:47
God chose Isaac over Ishmael. He chose the son brought into the world by supernatural means over that of the one that was brought in by natural means.
24:12
And also remember, the near sacrifice of Isaac is a foreshadowing in and of itself.
24:22
God stops the sacrifice and provides one in the form of a ram caught in it.
24:33
Also, look at where that happens. Not too far where later
24:41
God would provide his own son. Isaac is not only a living, breathing foreshadowing of Jesus himself pointing us to Christ, but also a type of those, as I said before, that are not born of the flesh.
25:03
They're not born by natural means. They're born of the power of the Spirit. And likewise,
25:10
Ishmael is a type of those born of the flesh by natural means.
25:19
You also see this exemplified in the type of man that Ishmael becomes.
25:27
Now, Isaac was a sinful man. Ishmael was too.
25:38
Quite feared. Now, again, there are common objections to what
25:48
Paul is talking about regarding God's election. Perhaps it is the election of one nation over another nation.
26:03
Perhaps it is the election of the Israelites over that of the Ishmaelites. I would like to point out that to come to that particular conclusion, as I said before, you have to set aside to think that Paul is talking about people groups.
26:26
You have to set aside the fact that he's literally talking about individuals. The entire theme up to this point has been individual election.
26:44
In what way has he suddenly changed his tune? You have to ignore what
27:02
Paul has been talking about. Forget everything you've read up to that point, especially in chapter 8.
27:12
Again, you're not allowed to do that. You have to read chapter 9 along with the rest inside the context of the book.
27:31
Also, Paul isn't finished talking yet. He's got a very long way to go.
27:37
Two more chapters just on this. We have a wonderful, wonderful grace given to us by God in the
27:47
Reformation, and that wonderful thing that the Roman Church fought so hard and desperately to keep from us was the ability for us to read
27:58
Scripture. Because before the Reformation, it was in Latin, and you went to Mass and it was read in Latin, if it was read at all.
28:08
Now it's called high Mass because they say it in normal language.
28:15
That's low Mass. One of the things they didn't want is for us to be able to read it on our own.
28:28
Number one, because they knew they were doing things that were wrong that would be found out. Number two, that's a very massive release of power.
28:38
The other objection was, well, people just get to read it on their own. They just make it say whatever they want. That one they had right.
28:49
That's exactly what happened in the Protestant movement. Not in the early
28:55
Reformation, people understood. People like Luther and Calvin and Knox and those forefathers of the
29:04
Protestant Reformation made it very clear that while we are blessed to be able to read Scripture in our native languages and understand it properly, we are not allowed to interpret it on our own into something that it doesn't say.
29:21
You do not have that right. But continuing in verse 10,
29:29
Paul says, And not only so, speaking of Isaac, not only so, but also when
29:36
Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, although they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, do you still want to argue about election?
30:01
In order that His purpose of election might continue, not start, continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger, as it is written,
30:25
Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. Just here, just here in 1, 2, 3, 4 verses, the view that we've talked about before, the prescient view that God's foreknowledge is the cause of election, they looked down the corridors of time and saw those who would respond positively to the gospel and therefore
30:52
He elected them for doing something that they never could have done in the first place without the power of the
30:57
Holy Spirit. Ruined.
31:05
That idea is ruined. The most prominent view in the
31:13
Baptist church in America today, ruined in four verses, is blown out of the water, period.
31:32
The only way around it is to just ignore the text. This also points to the nation's view that I mentioned before, because now we're not only talking about two individuals, an older and a younger, we're talking about twins.
31:55
And certainly if it is a nation's view, he couldn't have been talking about it in the previous verses, because the purity, if you want to say that word, of Israelites didn't come until Jacob.
32:09
So he couldn't have been talking about it then. Well, maybe he's talking about it now. It says, they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad.
32:20
This doesn't mean that they weren't corrupted by sin, this just means that they hadn't had the opportunity to act on that yet.
32:30
We are corrupted by sin from Adam. Every human being ever throughout time.
32:43
In order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls. So nothing that they would do, nothing that they did, and had the opportunity yet, and nothing that they could do down the corridor of time has any bearing on God's sovereign election of one over the other.
33:10
He points out also that it might continue, meaning eternal. That this is something that's already been going on.
33:22
Not because of works, so nothing they did, nothing anyone has done, but because of him who calls.
33:28
Because of God. Again, who does he name here?
33:38
Who does he name? He names the twins. He names
33:43
Jacob and Esau. I'll show you the verses here. The first is in Genesis 25, verse 23.
33:49
And the Lord said to her, speaking of Rebekah, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples within you shall be divided.
34:09
The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. The second reference
34:16
Paul makes, I'll go ahead and do it, is Malachi 1, verses 2 and 3.
34:23
Starting in verse 2, I have loved you, says the
34:29
Lord. But you say, how have you loved us? Is not
34:38
Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord. Yet I have loved
34:45
Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste to his hill country, and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.
35:01
Nations, said nations. Did you hear it? Yes, there is a reference in the prophetic word of the
35:14
Edomites and the Israelites. Do you know why it's there in the prophetic word?
35:23
Because it was going to happen. That is why Paul doesn't see fit to mention it in what he is talking about, because he is talking about individual election.
35:35
And the God -breathed word, the
35:41
Holy Spirit writing Scripture through Paul, through his hand, through his pen, referenced the
35:47
Holy Spirit along with Paul, referenced the older shall serve the younger to point out
35:57
God's sovereign election in that. In Malachi, this is a very hard one for a lot of people.
36:11
Regardless of your background. Rebekah bore twins.
36:23
It must still be similar in some way. A divinely aided pregnancy, the same as Sarah.
36:31
What is the same in the way that she could not have children? Rebekah was barren.
36:43
The reason this is the second one, so he addresses sovereign election first with Isaac and Ishmael, and then goes heavier on it with the example of Jacob and Esau.
36:59
He makes it more apparent that in the conception of the twins that election and predestination are about God's divine choice from all eternity in having chosen not the older, not the younger, but before either was born, one twin over the other.
37:24
That the firstborn shall serve the secondborn, the older over the younger, and before they had done anything at all.
37:36
This Paul is not talking about nations. He's not talking about foresight. He is simply continuing to talk about individual election and pointing that out from Old Testament scripture and prophecy.
37:52
This is why I said earlier at the very beginning of this long talk the historicity of why scripture was written in the first place matters.
38:05
It matters to know why Paul is writing Romans in the first place. Remember we talked about this schism that formed in the
38:17
Roman church between the ethnic Jews that it converted and the Gentile Christians. There are issues here now.
38:25
Not unlike if we here at Coram Deo had to leave for a while and when we came back,
38:36
Coram Deo was an SBC church. Just your average run -of -the -mill SBC church. There would be some issues.
38:50
So it matters to know why. Going back to God's election continuing,
38:59
I want to point this out. Seth, not the firstborn.
39:11
Was he? Not the firstborn of Adam. Who's number three?
39:20
Noah, not the only child of his father. Why Noah, the only one that believed?
39:33
Why? Same reason that we believe, because of God.
39:44
And in the same way that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
39:51
God held him sinless in his eyes as he does us. In the same way, so was
39:56
Noah. You have Abraham. Abraham is from Ur, far away from the land of Israel.
40:07
Before the land of Israel is even a thing. Isaac, Jacob, these are all divinely elect individuals that have been chosen, not because of who they were or because of where they were from or because of what they did or because of what they were going to do, but they were chosen for God's own purpose.
40:37
For what God wanted to happen. They were the means by which he brought that to bear.
40:49
And think about this. Hold this for just a moment. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the patriarchs.
40:59
Okay? Let me say this very carefully. Were not in and of themselves
41:08
Jews. They are the patriarchs, but they're not
41:16
Jews. The purity, if you want to use that term, of the ethnic
41:23
Jews does not come about until Jacob, Israel, has his sons. It wasn't from Abraham.
41:33
It wasn't from Isaac. It was from Jacob. So none of them were saved because they were ethnically
41:44
Jewish. Call back to what we read last week.
41:52
Way further down the line of time, since it's linear for us.
41:59
Call back to what we read last week in the reading, 1 Kings 19 -18.
42:08
When the nation of Israel has been established, they have been there for quite some time.
42:17
Verse 18 says, Yet I will leave 7 ,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.
42:31
Meaning those that stayed faithful to God. By what means?
42:43
By the only means any human being can stay faithful or be faithful in the first place to God, the
42:54
Holy Spirit. Do one more here.
43:02
What about John 3 -16? The most common objection that you will get individually in talking with people, especially if they are in the church.
43:14
But John 3 -16. Everybody knows it by heart. You ought to.
43:20
It's the most quoted verse of the Bible. Okay, well let's look at it.
43:25
Let's go to John 3 -16. On your phones, in the book. However, I'll wait.
43:32
And let's take a look at the actual text. John 3 -16.
43:44
Verse 16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
43:55
That's where everyone stops. And that's the problem. For God did not send
44:03
His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him the first time.
44:13
Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe in Him is condemned already.
44:28
Nobody wants to say that part. See, the issue here, the issue is that this verse in particular is used indiscriminately without its greater context.
44:50
You hear verse 16 all the time. You never hear it coupled with verse 17 or 18.
44:56
Sometimes with 17. Hardly ever with 18. The reason is not only does that point to predestination and election, it points to double predestination and election, which we will get into later in the coming weeks.
45:21
People really do not like that idea. And just as this section of Romans is taken out of context to mean things that it doesn't mean, so too here in John 3, verse 18 is not necessarily consistently misunderstood or maliciously mistranslated, but it is purposefully avoided so that people continue to teach what they want to teach, so that people can continue to believe what they want to believe.
46:11
Because if I don't read it, at least I'll have the excuse that I didn't know.
46:24
See, the avoidance of the truth doesn't stop with the gospel. This is why the truth is shown to us by the
46:34
Holy Spirit in very small amounts over a very long period of time.
46:40
The gospel saves. Absolutely, it does.
46:45
It's the only part of this that truly, truly matters, is the gospel, is
46:51
Christ. It is the only thing that will save you. But even with the gospel, we still have an issue with God's truth.
47:02
Our flesh still struggles with it. Another thing that is very, very hard for people, is very commonly misunderstood.
47:18
At the very end of the text, Esau, I hated.
47:27
How dare you say that God hates people. God loves everyone. Now, what is referenced here, what
47:42
Malachi is talking about, what Paul is referencing, the Holy Spirit is bringing into the truth of the
47:49
Word, there is not an unbridled human hatred as we experience it.
47:54
That is not what he is talking about. He's not saying, I was lubby -dubby with Jacob, and I gave him all the blessings, and Esau, I did not like him at all.
48:03
He was a nasty human being. I hated him. That is not the kind of hatred that he's talking about.
48:16
We do see in the Old Testament Scriptures where God does have a loathing for evil human beings.
48:26
You can point out the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Canaanite people, the
48:33
Egyptians. God does loathe people because they're evil human beings.
48:45
But it's not the hatred that we think, that we experience that he's talking about here.
48:53
It is rather an expression of God having not chosen Esau. I'll explain that a little bit further.
49:06
All of us are loved by God through common grace.
49:14
The easiest way to show that is if you remember, I have a reference here, but it rains on both the wicked and the righteous, the rich and the poor.
49:26
It's raining right now. Everybody's getting wet. That is common grace.
49:33
That is a love that God gives to all his creatures. Food, rain, the warmth of the sun, the beauty of the heavens.
49:51
This is common love given to all creation, all human beings, all of the blessings that we share.
50:05
And what is being talked about here when he says in Esau I hated is the fact that it looks like hatred in comparison to the love that God had for Jacob, an elect individual.
50:29
In his commentary about this section, R .C. Sproul, he says this, Jesus spoke similarly when he said, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life, he also cannot be my disciple.
50:52
References Luke 14, 26 if you want it. Jesus is making a comparison between those who want to love him, making it,
51:04
Jesus was making a comparison that those who want to love him must love him before all others.
51:13
In the life of a saint, of someone indwelt with the Holy Spirit, Christ is preeminent above all things.
51:29
Jesus requires that the love we have for our friends, spouses, mothers, fathers, and even children must be so much less than the love that we have for him that it could be seen as hatred.
51:56
The idea isn't that you must cut off relations with your mother and your father and your children and your wives or your husbands.
52:08
The idea is you have a biblical obligation to those people. Your mother and father's commandment.
52:17
Obey your mother and father. That isn't an end when you turn 20. They still deserve the respect of being your mother and your father, irregardless of your relationship with them.
52:37
But the love that we have for our friends and for our family members should be so small, even in fulfilling our biblical obligation to those people, it should be so small in comparison to the love that we have for Christ.
53:02
In much the same way that even Paul, the apostle
53:10
Paul, is so vastly separated from Christ. Paul, a man who endured so much suffering, joyfully for Christ's sake, went to his death for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of Christ.
53:33
A man that we in the church tend to put so high, elevate so high, because he wrote most of the
53:42
New Testament. The Holy Spirit used him to write the majority of the New Testament that we have today.
53:48
And yet, when compared to Christ, he is absolutely down here with the rest of us.
54:01
That is the vastness between the love for our family and our love for Christ. You may yet die for a family member.
54:11
Many of us would, especially our children. There is nothing on this earth that could keep a true saint from dying for Christ.
54:22
Nothing. The verses that we have covered today should produce in us a wonderful joy and humility.
54:40
It is in that it is nothing that we have done, nothing that anyone has done or will do, that has caused
54:51
God to elect us, but rather His divine mercy and choice,
54:58
His choice from all eternity to set us aside as vessels of mercy.
55:10
And in that our salvation lies and is secure.
55:17
In that same vein, we should also express to those who are unbelievers that while we are not responsible for our salvation, we are absolutely responsible for our sin.
55:34
Paul does address this in Romans multiple times. But we'll be coming to it soon.
55:41
But because we are responsible for our sin, sin against an immortal, eternal, triune
55:53
God, the punishment is also eternal.
56:01
The only way to escape that punishment is by faith in Christ alone.
56:15
Do not slack in fulfilling the Great Commission. We'll continue next week as Paul moves further into individual election and predestination.
56:29
And soon, we will most definitely be discussing how there are vessels of mercy and vessels of destruction.