Off the Shelf Sunday School--Romans
Warren Mueller
Christian Author & Lake Ecosystem Scientist. Manager Environmental Assessments at Ameren (Retired).
Prophecies of the Salvation of Gentiles (9:25-33)
As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and, “It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called the sons of the living God.” Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea, only the remnant will be saved. For the Lord will carry out his sentence on earth with speed and finality.” It is just as Isaiah said previously: “Unless the Lord Almighty had left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrah.” What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the “stumbling stone.” As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”
1. Paul quotes statements by the Old Testament prophets Hosea and Isaiah to show that it was foretold that some Gentiles would be saved along with some Jews. He says that it is by faith and not works that people are made righteous with God.
2. Paul says that most people will not be saved from the wrath of God’s judgment against sinners. He offers the example of Sodom and Gomorrah where only Lot and his daughters were saved from destruction. (Gen 19:15-26; Mt 7:13-14)
3. Israel pursued righteousness by trying to keep God’s commands, but this path leads to failure and to the knowledge of the depravity of mankind. Our human nature has been corrupted by sin and desires ways that are contrary to God’s commands. This sinful tendency is called depravity and it, like the law of gravity, binds us to our sinful ways. (Gal 2:15-16). What are some of the ways that make humans sinful? (Gal 5:17-21)
4. Who is the stumbling stone? How do people over-estimate their importance and righteousness through following religious doctrines and good works? (Is 64:6-7)