Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, read by Ralph Beuhler, Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost, September 4, 2011, Yr. 3A, No. 893, Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church, W.E.L.S., Harrisburg, PA, based on Romans 9:1-5
As a Christian you know and believe that Jesus died for your sins and it is only through faith in Jesus that you will have the forgiveness of sins and heaven as home. However, what about all the rest of the world? According to some research there are about 13.3 million Jews in the world today. Are all the Jews who do not believe in Christ truly lost? That is a very sad thought for Christ and God’s salvation came from the Jews!
In the reading for today Paul expresses great sorrow over so many of his countrymen who did not believe in Christ and so are lost. He can be sure of that for God’s only salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ as Lord and Savior. There is no other salvation, for anyone, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, Hindu or of any other religion, will not be saved! No wonder Paul felt such unceasing sorrow and great pain in his heart for his fellow Jew who was an unbeliever. This reading asks, “Do you grieve over unbelief? If so, are you willing to proclaim Christ as God over all?”Hear the words of Saint Paul from Romans 9:1-5, "I speak the truth in Christ— I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit—2 I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4 the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen."
“Do you grieve over unbelief? If so, are you willing to proclaim Christ as God over all?”
In this reading, Paul begins a long address regarding the issue what about the Jews? The question is worthy to contemplate for even if the Jews unbelievers are outside the Christian church, what about the status of the Jews as God's Chosen Nation? Is not being a descendant of Abraham by blood enough for salvation? In response, Paul shares his inmost feelings; he has great sorrow and unceasing anguish which the Holy Spirit confirmed as being right. His anguish is so great that if it were possible he could wish that he was cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of his own brothers, the people of his race, the Israelites. His anguish is real for he knows faith in Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation. Like Paul,“Do you grieve over unbelief?”
Paul's expression of unceasing sorrow and great anguish is rather startling as it comes immediately after some of the most profound and comforting words of Scripture when he says, in Romans 8:35-39 (NIV), "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
How could Paul be so confident that nothing could ever separate the Christian from the love of Christ? That confidence is based on Paul's doctrinal summation of the Gospel in Romans 1:16-17 (NIV), where he says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Paul explained why you need the power of the Gospel to save you. You and everyone need the power of the gospel to be saved because no one has any excuse before God for sin.
Paul taught that though we have no excuse for sin, we have the greatest of confidence that God, who hates sin and sinners, has made all who believe right before him. As Paul says in Romans 3:23-24 (NIV) "There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." No wonder sums up his comfort and joy in saying that nothing in all creation can separate the believer from the love of Christ.
Yet, immediately, in this reading, Paul says he wished he could become a curse, if that would save his fellow Jews. Off course that would not be possible. Paul could become cursed, simply by falling away from faith. But Paul could no more be cursed for the sake of Israel any more than you or me. As Psalm 49:7-9 (NIV) says, "No man can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for him—8 the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough— 9 that he should live on forever and not see decay."
No man could become a curse and give his life to ransom another, except the God-man Christ Jesus. Jesus did become a curse. God tells you in Galatians 3:13 (NIV), "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Jesus became a curse by taking on all the sins of the world and putting them on himself. He then hung on the cross and suffered hell paying the price of sin. Only Jesus could save all from eternal decay because as true God, he was the perfect sacrifice for sin.His precious blood was sufficient to save us all. 1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV) tells us, "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect."
Why did Paul grieve over such unbelief by his fellow Jew? Paul grieved so because he was willing to accept God's absolute judgement of eternal death for all who do not believe in Christ Jesus. Paul speaks the truth, as painful as it might have been. The Jews who reject Christ as Lord and Savior will not be saved simply because of their own unbelief, though from a physical standpoint they are descendants of God’s Chosen People. Paul will shortly point out that the correct definition of God’s Chosen People is not a bloodline descent, but confession of faith in the promise of the Savior. Christians are God’s Chosen People. What a tragedy their unbelief is for consider how the Jews had it all. They had been adopted and made the Chosen Nation. They had been given covenants at Mt. Sinai that God would be their God and they of all nations on earth would be God's people, if they obeyed all God had commanded.
They had the divine glory of God, as God led them by day and night in the wilderness, and as he dwelt among them in the Tabernacle and the Temple. They had been instructed by God in the divine Temple worship and had been given priests, prophets and the very Word of God. The greatest gift of all was being the ones to bring forth the Christ, according to his human nature. Jesus was born a Jew from the Tribe of Judah, from the House of David. Though by bloodline they could claim direct descent from Abraham, they were lost because they did not believe. No association with a race or religion saved them; no prestige of nationality, of bloodlines saved them. The only way for any Jew to be saved, is the only way you will be saved and that is through faith in Christ Jesus.
Do you have unceasing sorrow and great anguish for the lost? Or are you satisfied that you are saved and chose not to be concerned over the rest of the world? God calls you to love your fellow man. That love expresses itself at its greatest point in your concern over the eternal fate of your fellow man. This is a call to repentance for not having the love for our fellow man to anguish over the lost state of so many. God in his mercy forgives us for such a lack of love. As we celebrate our forgiveness for not caring, let us determine to carry out the great command of Christ to go and make disciples of all nations.“Do you grieve over unbelief? If so, are you willing to proclaim Christ as God over all?”
Does this mean that God's promises to the Jewish nation were all for naught, that his Word failed? Not at all, for recall that when God called Israel to be his Chosen Nation the promise was based on the condition that the Israelites obey all that God commanded. Israel never did this even for a moment. The calling of Israel to be the Chosen Nation with such condition served to show one and all the great need for the Savior. Salvation, even for the Jew, a blood member of God's Chosen Nation, will come only through God's promise of the one and only Savior. This makes the Christian faith, the oldest faith on earth, because the Christian is the true Jew who traces his faith back, not just to Abraham, but to Adam and Eve and to the promise to them to send the offspring of Eve to crush the head of the serpent.
This is a call to repentance for all the times we were willing to say that devout Jews or Buddists or Muslims or or any other devoutly religious person would somehow make it to heaven. It is a call to repentance for to say that is to call God a liar and his Word untrue. Turn to your Lord for forgiveness and make every effort to spread the truth.
Jesus could not have saved you unless he was true God. Verse five in this reading clearly proclaims Christ as God over all. Jesus is true man and true God. He has made all the difference by sacrificing himself to save you. You will not be saved because you are a Wisconsin Lutheran in the sense that you name is on a congregation's membership list. You will not be saved simply because you call yourself a Christian or because you come from a Christian family or call your nation a Christian nation. No! You will be saved only because Christ Jesus, true God, became a true man and suffered and died on the cross for all your sins and you believe it!
No wonder Paul had unceasing sorrow and great pain in his heart for his fellow Jews, for though they had it all, they had nothing at all, for without faith in Christ you are lost forever. No wonder he could but wish he could save his unbelieving brothers. A mere wish, for it would be impossible. All Paul could possibly do is all you can possibly do, share the truth in love to all the world! But then that is all someone did for you. That is all you can do for the billions of people who reject Christ and so are lost today, no matter what they believe. How do you answer the questions, “Do you grieve over unbelief? If so, are you willing to proclaim Christ as God over all?” To God be all glory, amen!