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The Bible says that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, but we've tried to pave over that with easy-believe-ism, forgetting that the Bible declares our salvation is attained not by our works, but God's, when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand the Text, a daily study of God's Word, that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will.
Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and thank you for letting me be late with this episode today. I had a truly exhausting weekend, did not get around to recording the devotional until late in the evening.
Tuesday's episode will be on time. As for today, we've got one little snippet of Romans 9 to finish up, and then we'll get into Romans 10 tomorrow. So let's look here at the end of Romans 9, verses 30 through 33.
What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.
Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 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.
Paul quoting from Isaiah there in that last verse, Isaiah 28. Let's go back to verse 30. What shall we say then? And Paul is asking this question in light of everything that we looked at in verses 1 through 29.
Paul has presented this doctrine of God's sovereign election, which I think is best summarized in verse 11, where we read that God's purpose of election will continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls.
So the salvation that we receive is according to God's work, not ours. And so it was not attained by Israel as the chosen people of God because of an adherence to the law, but rather was a gift of faith that is given not just to the Jews now, but extended to the Gentiles.
So in light of this, verse 30, what shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it. That is a righteousness that is by faith, but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works.
So as we see God's purpose of election continuing in the world, what we see is that this is the work of God and not the work of man. That's what we see in this example of Jews and Gentiles. Gentiles have received salvation by faith because it is a gift of God.
Israel has not received salvation inherently for being Israel because it is not the work of man. It is not because of their adherence to the law or their works. Faith is a gift that comes from God. And I think back to Romans chapter 4 where we've had this stated previously, that a person who has faith shares the faith of Abraham.
Verse 17, in the presence of God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. So previously we had no faith. Our faith did not exist. We did not concentrate and manifest our faith on our own, but rather that the word of God brought about our faith.
Understand that all things came into existence in creation by the word of God. In Genesis chapter 1, God said, let there be light and there was. God said, let the heavens. God said, let the land and the water separate.
God said, let there be living creatures. So he spoke things into existence and they came to be. The same way that God created all things is the very same way he brings about saving faith. The gospel was spoken to you, the word of God, according to the scriptures, and you had faith.
As we read in Romans 10, 17, I quoted this last week as well. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So your faith came into existence by the word of God, just as all things came into existence.
This is by God's work, not a work of ours. We read also in Ephesians 2, 8, 9, it is by grace who have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works so that no one may boast.
So the very faith that you have is not manifest by you. It is given to you by God. Even your faith is the work of God, so that the righteousness that we attain comes not from ourselves. It is not by our works or anything that we did, but is a righteousness that has been given to us by God.
And we also saw this in Romans 3, where Paul kind of lays down the doctrine of justification clearly, starting in verse 23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith.
This is all the work of God. Israel thought that they could attain this righteousness, this justification before God, by their own merit, by their ability to keep the law, but they could not do that. They did not succeed in that.
As Paul goes on to say here in Romans 9, they did not succeed in reaching that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. Therefore they have stumbled over the stumbling stone, 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.
Think of 2 Timothy 2 .15, Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. So Israel, by their works, ended up being ashamed because they thought they could attain a righteousness by their works.
But for those of us who place our faith on the work of God through Jesus Christ have no need to be ashamed because we rightly handle the word of truth. We rightly understand, according to God's word, that our salvation is not attained by our works, but rather is attained by the work of God, the work of Christ on the cross.
The works that we then do flow from what Christ has accomplished. They are a reflection of the righteousness that we have received by faith. Not that we're working to attain that righteousness, but that we have already attained it, and then by our works we display the righteousness of Christ that we have already attained.
So therefore, going back to the example that I'm using here in 2 Timothy 2 .15, we are workers who have no need to be ashamed because we work to display the righteousness that we have rather than to attain that righteousness.
Does that make sense? You got it? Okay. We rightly handle the word of truth according to the Spirit of God, not by any work of our own. Now this passage that we read here, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense.
Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. We actually see this passage come up multiple times through the Scriptures. Jesus brought it up in the book of Matthew. Jesus said to the Pharisees, this is Matthew 21, verse 42,.
Have you never read the Scriptures? The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes. Therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people producing its fruits.
And the one who falls on this stone will be broken into pieces, and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him. That's the reference Jesus makes there in Matthew. Peter also makes a reference to this as well in 1 Peter 2, 6, for it stands in Scripture.
Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. And so those who, among the Jews, tried to attain a righteousness by their works and did not place their faith in God and in understanding his word rightly, they have stumbled on that stone of stumbling and that rock of offense as they were destined to do.
This is also a passage that I have used to talk about easy-believism, how we have taken the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, and we have paved it over with easy-believism, easy ways for people to believe.
All you have to do is say these words, repeat these after me, and you will be saved. All you have to do is raise your hand and come down front, and you too can have eternal life. How much do we understand before we respond to those kinds of invitations, the easy responses to those invitations?
How much do we understand a conviction of our sin, repenting of those things, and truly having a heart that has been transformed for God and Jesus Christ? Now, I'll tell you there are people who have responded to those kinds of invitations that have been genuine in their declarations of independence.
I think of my grandmother being one of them, my dad also being another one. They both came to Christ having responded to those invitations. But the genuineness of those who respond to those invitations are the exceptions, not the rules.
More often than not, a person that will respond to some kind of invitation, coming down front and saying some kind of prayer, does not continue in the faith later on. The percentage is very, very small of those who respond to such invitations and actually are genuine in their declarations of repentance.
It is not an easy thing to come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, it is impossible. A person on their own cannot believe the Word of God. We've already had it said to us in chapter 3 that no one seeks after God.
We also read in 1 Corinthians 2 .14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. So it takes the Spirit of God transforming our hearts in order to understand the Word of God.
If the Spirit has not acted first, then we cannot understand the gospel, and we cannot believe on his name or call upon his name in any way that is holy and pleasing and acceptable to the Lord, except that we have been first changed by the Holy Spirit of God.
So these are the things that we come to understand in this example of the Jews and the Gentiles that has been given to us in Romans 9. We have concluded this chapter, and we'll continue into Romans 10 tomorrow.
Lord, as we have read these things and we come to understand them, I pray that you give us a heart that is able to worship you in a righteous way. May the words that come from our mouths be holy and pleasing and acceptable to you, O Lord, and only through your power can we say or do anything that is acceptable to you, not by our works, but according to your work.
We praise you and give you thanks in the name of Jesus, by whom we have been given our salvation. Amen.
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