Children of the Living God
Salvation is of the Lord • Sermon • Submitted
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Introduction:
Introduction:
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.
And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been made like unto Gomorrha.
This is a wonderfully deep portion of Scripture that we are going to be begin to study.
Paul brings his argument center stages as he begins to point to the fact that God never intended to save all Jews and that He intended, by His grace, to bring in the Gentiles to His kingdom.
Israel, throughout their existence, had led in one rebellion against God after another and finally that led to God, as we will see, ceasing his special relationship with the Jews people and bringing in the Gentiles.
As we will see, God word did not fail, this was always his sovereign plan; to not save every Jew and to bring in the Gentiles.
But we have a lot to say, so lets get to it.
We will only be able, possibly, to cover two of the three points that this portion of the text speaks.
We will see first, The Calling Initiated by the Father; and second, The Compassion Illustration of the Prophet Hosea.
I. The Calling Initiated by God the Father (vs. 24)
I. The Calling Initiated by God the Father (vs. 24)
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
I think that it is important to bring into this point verse 23, because v. 24 is a continuing thought from v. 23.
And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Paul, again addressing a probable objector, tells the Church that the reason that God allows evil to exist, and had thus pre-ordained it to exist, is not only (for the sake of argument) that He would be able to show his wrath, but also so that He would be able to show the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy.
Then he comes in with v. 24.
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Paul is clear here that the calling from God to salvation is not only for the Jews but it is also for the Gentiles.
Throughout this chapter, the argument has been an answer to those who held that God could not bless Gentiles because He had committed Himself to Abraham.
And even though God did, in fact, commit Himself to Abraham rather than some Egyptian of Babylonian, Isaac rather than Ishmael, and Jacob rather than Esau, He was operating by His sovereign pleasure and according to the counsel of His own will.
And because of the promises that He had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; Israel still rebelled and rejected Her Messiah.
And because of the rejection and rebellion, God had put His people in bondage and judgment and the objection is then, if God had set aside Israel as the special recipient of His blessing then something must be wrong with God’s promises because most of Israel is rejecting.
And that is why, I believe, that Paul said what he did in verse 6 of this chapter.
Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
Paul’s point is that it is not that the Word of God has failed, because just because they are Jews does not mean that the promises that are given are given to them individually.
And this has been the whole argument of Paul this entire chapter, that the promises are given sovereignly not biologically.
God reserves the right to give the benefits of the promise to whomever He chooses.
Now the benefits of the promises are powerful enough to cover everyone, but God did not chose to do it that way; that is why there are vessels of wrath, who were determined before the foundation of the earth, that each time they reject the Gospel they are fitting themselves more for the kingdom of darkness.
Paul’s argument that flows in this chapter has been, “Listen, God’s Word has not failed. He did not ever intend that the promises of salvation only be applied to the Jews.
And all they had to do was to read the prophets and they would have seen very clearly that God had never intended to only apply to promises of redemption to the Jews, but that he had always intended to include the Gentiles.
That is is point of what Paul said:
Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel:
The promises are not and have never been just for Israel, God had always sovereignly intended to include the Gentiles.
I have heard people say things like, “Well, the people of Israel rejected Christ, so God then opened up the offer of Salvation to the Gentiles”.
Nothing could really be farther from the truth.
Gentiles are not God’s secondary plan; as if, “Well, my first plan failed, let me try this one and see how it goes”.
If the people of Israel had only read and interpreted as the Apostle interpreted the texts, they would see that God had always intended to bring Gentiles into the offer of Salvation.
Because, again, keep in mind that to the Jewish mind they were the only ones that were the recipients of salvation; that Gentiles were unredeemable dogs.
That is why, among other reasons, that they hated the Romans because they were Gentiles.
That is why is so offensive when a Jew became a tax collector; and why they were so hated.
Take, for example, Zacheus who was a Jew and became a tax collector.
He was seen as a traitor to his people, because to become a tax collector was to work for the Romans.
They hated the Samaritans because when Israel was taken captive by the Assyrians, many of the Jews had children with the Assyrians and they considered them not to be part of the promise because they were not considered to be Jewish because they were part Gentile.
Notice this very familiar verse.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Jesus is echoing that same message here; that salvation is not for the Jews only but also for the Gentiles.
You say, “How so”?
Jesus is speaking here to Nicodemus; not only a Jew, but a Pharisee or a ruler of the Jews.
I mean, he is steeped in his Jewishness.
And when Jesus says that God loved the world, what He is saying to this Jew is that salvation is not just a promise for the Jews, but is also a promise for the Gentiles, the world; so that anyone that believes would have eternal life.
But the selfish blindness of people grown hard in pride of their own self-righteousness had made it impossible for them to read truth where it was written, but it was written and nothing could change that.
The prophecies of God were so definite and so unmistakable that it was impossible to gainsay them.
God’s Covenants The Gentiles
Nevertheless, in the midst of words which made definite commitments to Israel, there were hidden promises which must also be applied to the Gentiles. God had made His commitments, but He had reserved to Himself the right to go beyond and make other commitments.
II. The Compassion Illustrated by Hosea the Prophet (vs. 25-26)
II. The Compassion Illustrated by Hosea the Prophet (vs. 25-26)
As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
If you have ever studied this passage of Scripture before now, you may have come to this portion of the text and wondered what in the world is the Apostle talking about?
This does not seem to fit the rest of the text.
That is because sometimes it is difficult for us to keep up with Paul and the richness of his thoughts as he moved from one connected thought to another.
The real objection that is given in the first part of the chapter is that if God has not been faithful to Israel in saving all Jews, but rather has abandoned some to perish in their sins, what is to make up think that he will be faithful to Gentile believers.
Paul’s answer was that God never elected all Jews to salvation, any more than he has elected all Gentiles to salvation, but that all whom he did elect from both Jews and Gentiles will be saved.
Paul makes that point as he saw in v. 24.
The point is that not all of Israel would be saved and that some of Gentiles would be saved.
If God had promised in advance to that every individual Jew would be saved and then had failed to save all Jews, we could rightly accuse God of having broken His word and complain that His purposes have failed.
But such is not the case as is illustrated by a minor Prophet and a major Prophet.
The passage from Hosea shows the acceptability of the Gentiles and the passage from Isaiah show that the call of salvation has never included all Israel.
Just some background, I must remind of what is going on in the book of Hosea.
Hosea had been told by God to marry a woman who was going to prove to be unfaithful to him, because God wanted him to provide a visible illustration of how the people of Israel and been unfaithful to God, but how God had remained faithful to them and loved them in spite of their infidelities.
So Hosea married the woman.
The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.
At this point Gomer began to have children, and God intervened to give the children symbolic names, which is part of the quotations picked up by Paul in .
The first child was a sons and God said name him Jezreel.
Jezreel is a Hebrew word that has to do with the motion of the hand used in scattering something to the winds, or throwing it away.
A strange name to give a child but God gave Hosea and Gomer’s son this name because the time was coming when God would scatter the people of the northern kingdom among the Gentile nations as punishment for their sins.
By the way Hosea prophesied into the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah (1:1), which was within six years of the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians.
So this first prophecy was fulfilled almost immediately following his death.
The Second child was a daughter.
God said to name her Lo-Ruhamah.
Lo-Ruhamah is composed of two Hebrew Words, Lo, meaning “no” or “not” (the Hebrew negative) and Ruhamah meaning “loved” or “pitied”.
God called the daughter “Not loved” or “Not Pitied” because during the age in which the Jews woulds be scattered among the Gentiles. God would show them no pity and would seem to have ceased loving them at all.
Finally another son was born and God said to call him Lo-Ammi.
Again the Hebrew negative “lo” meaning “no” or “not”, but the rest of the word meaning “my people”.
So Lo-Ammi means “not my people”.
People who continue to think of the Jews as God’s specially chosen people might wonder how this could be, but Go dis saying that the time would come when the Jews would cease to be his people in any special sense.
And as we are going to see, today the true people of God are neither the Jews as a nation of any Gentile nation, but rather the Church of Jesus Christ, which is composed of Jews and Gentiles according to the principles of election.
You might wonder how does the story of Hosea illustrate God’s unfailing love?
Certainly it illustrates the unfaithfulness of mankind and the way that God judges sin. But love? Unfailing love?
How is unfailing love illustrated by the words, Jezreel, Lo-Ruhammah, Lo-Ammi?
The answer is in the verses Paul quotes in .
He quotes two verses.
The first is from , though he only used the second half; here is the full verse.
And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God.
If you notice, each of the children’s names are discussed in this verse and the point is that the names will be changed, thus indicating the outcome of the story.
The first name was changed in meaning only.
It remains Jezreel, but the meaning is no longer “scattered” but “planted”, because the same motion that would be used to throw something away was also used by farmers to scatter and plus plan grain.
God refers to that changed when he says, “I will plant her for myself in the land”.
The second name is changed by eliminating the negative. Lo-Ruhamah will become Ruhamah, because God is going to love or have pity on the people once again.
“I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one’”.
In the same way, Lo-Ammi will become Ammi, because, as God says, “I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘you are my people; and will say, ‘You are my God.’”
The second verse that Paul quotes in comes from the end of and has the same effect as , though it deals only with the change in the name Lo-Ammi.
Hosea 1:10
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
There is a difficulty that arises at this point yo may have noticed if you have been comparing and 2:23 with closely.
In Hosea, the prophet is talking about the rejection and eventual restoration of the Jews of the ten northern tribes, whose capital was Samaria. But, in Romans, Paul is writing about the Gentiles.
The problem is sometimes handled by saying that “Well, Paul is writing about the restoration of the Jews, which he does in ”.
But that is clearly out of step with the context.
Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Verse 24 is speaking of a new people, the elect people of God, which is the Church of Jesus Christ, composed of Jews and Gentiles.
Ands the verses that follow obviously teach that the Gentiles, which were not a people, have now become the people of Gog along with the believing Jews.
This is also the case in 1 Peter, where Peter uses of Gentiles in the exact same way.
Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Is Paul misusing Scripture?
That is not actually the case.
What Paul’s quotation does show is the way he understood the words spoken to Israel when God called the nation Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi.
Particularly Lo-Ammi, which is the name he focuses on in his quotations.
According to Paul’s thinking, Lo-Ammi is not to be understood merely in the sense that the people were going to be treated as IF they were no longer God’s people, when, in fact, they were.
Rather, it means that they actually ceased being God’s people in a special sense.
That is, they became “Gentiles” as far as their relationship to God was concerned.
So it is not actually of Jews that the words “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people” are spoken but of those who have become “Gentiles” by their rejection of God. It is from these Gentiles, both ethnic Gentiles and ethnic Jews who have thus actually become “Gentiles,” that the new people of God is formed
John Calvin said:
“When the Jews were banished from the family of God, they were thereby reduced to a common level with the Gentiles. The distinction between Jew and Gentile has been removed, and the mercy of God now extends indiscriminately to all the Gentiles.”4
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”
Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God.
You will notice from a careful comparison of Hosea 1:10 and Romans 9:26 that there is an emphasis in Romans on the words “in the very place.” In this context the words do not refer to Samaria, which fell to the Assyrians in 721 B.C., or to Jerusalem, which fell in 586 B.C., but to Gentile lands, the very places where it was said of the scattered nation, “You are not my people.”
So it is among the Gentiles that mean and women were to be called to faith and be designated “sons of the living God.”
You and I are those people, whether Jews or Gentiles, if we have been called to faith in Jesus Christ and trust Him as our Lord and Savior.
What a wonderful compassion that is shown to Gentiles, whether ethnic Jews or ethnic Gentiles, that those who were not His people and not loved by Him, will by Jesus Christ, be loved and received by Him.