A Grace-Shaped Life: Romans 9-16Sample

Children of Promise

So then it depends not on human will or exertion but on God, who has mercy. (Romans 9:16)

Having older sisters who excelled in high school and college, which I attended, brought an unexpected advantage. The professors who taught them assumed that I was just as intelligent as they were. When my grades fluctuated between an A and a B, I frequently received the benefit of the doubt. I felt (and sometimes acted) like I had a birthright to the Dean’s List. That didn’t work in seminary, where no professor knew the name “Opgenorth.”

Paul expresses anguish (Rom. 9:2) over his Jewish kinsmen’s reliance on their perceived birthright as descendants of Abraham. They rejected Jesus partly because they didn’t see the need for a Savior like him. They were Israelites by birth and, in their eyes, keepers of the covenant through obedience and sacrifice. They should have seen Jesus as the fulfillment of all God’s promises, but instead, they sought his death by Pilate’s decree.

In the first half of Romans, Paul explained from the Old Testament that all people—Jews and Gentiles alike—are under God’s judgment as sinners and that all people (Jews and Gentiles alike) can be saved through the gift of God’s grace in Jesus. Even Abraham was saved by faith (Rom. 4:3) and not by works or birthright.

What good news! Salvation has nothing to do with being born into the right family or coming from a specific ethnicity. “So then it depends... on God, who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Amen!

As you pray, thank God for his mercy.