Paul Mourns over Israel’s Rejection of Christ
Romans
9:1-5 I tell the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me
witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my
heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my
brethren, my countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain
the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of
God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom,
according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the
eternally blessed God. Amen. NKJV
Paul now stops suddenly and dramatically and turns
the focus of his letter directly to the Jews that have yet to receive the
forgiveness that Christ purchased on the Cross for them as He did for every
tribe and tongue of human beings throughout the whole world. Our Lord Jesus
Christ was born in the flesh a Jew and He was raised in all the Jewish customs
and traditions as Paul was and every other Jew. Our Lord Jesus was sent to the
lost sheep of Israel (to His own who received Him not) and most of the parables
our Lord Jesus spoke were a vivid word picture of just that reality. Perhaps
the most striking was the parable of the wicked vinedressers which is recorded
in Matthew 21:33-46. Paul was no
doubt acquainted with this parable and the others that portrayed the Pharisees
as religious hypocrites who were more concerned with what they could get from
God than what they could give to Him. Paul was surely present on many of the occasions
our Lord Jesus spoke these and other parables, being that he was a high ranking
Pharisee before his conversion (Galatians
1:13-14). Paul no doubt has all of these ugly memories come flooding back
as he has gone about now preaching the gospel of Christ and seeing some current
Pharisees and other Jews as zealous as he was and also as blind spiritually as
he was not able to discern the truth correctly through the Prophets of old and
especially Isaiah 52 & Isaiah 53.
Paul again is not a man to conceal what he thinks
and feels, but is very free in sharing his heart and emotions with all. As Paul
begins the new dialogue, he first wants everyone to understand that what he is
saying is the truth and not him trying to appear pious or super spiritual or
above other saints. Paul wanted it to be known and believed that he was
expressing his true feelings. Paul says that he has great heaviness and
continual sorrow in his heart. Paul used the Greek word megas translated by those into King James English with the word
great. At that time it was perhaps the only word available in the King James
English to convey the meaning of megas.
This Greek word megas means
exceedingly great or big or large, it is perhaps where we now get our English
word mega from and it is used by the Apostle Paul to express the vast and wide
ranging or abundant nature of his heaviness and grieved heart over the Nation
Israel. Paul was not just hugely grieved, but his grief was defined by the
Greek word adialeiptos which means
unintermitted, that is, permanent or without ceasing or continual.
Paul not only grieved over the lost condition of the
Nation Israel and its individual citizens for their rejection of our Lord Jesus
Christ as The Messiah, but he never stopped grieving over them and grieved so
over them all the way until he was beheaded by the Romans. These Jews tried to
kill Paul on several occasions and beat him three times with rods and beat him
five times with the cat of nine tails the same thing used to beat our Lord
Jesus Christ with before He was crucified (Acts
21:30-32 & Acts 22:22 & Acts 25:24). This former Jewish Pharisee
knew what it was like to be trapped in spiritual darkness or blindness by
religious zeal minus Christ and agonized over those current Jews in the same
condition or state of mind and spirit that he once found himself. Paul knew
these men of the Jewish hierarchy and the non-ruling Jews as well were on a
collision course with hell and it caused Paul’s heart to be filled with indescribable
grief and sorrow for these people and their rejection of Jesus Christ the Light
of the World.
Paul knew from the reality and truth of his own
conversion that words were not enough to convince these people of the truth
about Christ. Paul surely heard many of the early Apostles of our Lord like
Peter, James, and John preaching the gospel to many in Jerusalem and other
places, but he still was unchanged in his heart until he had a personal
encounter with our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was so moved with grief and sorrow
over their present spiritual state that he even pondered what he knew was not
possible at all, but he stated he could wish himself to be in their shoes and
they in his shoes. Paul knew that it was impossible for him to ever be
unregenerate again, but he so wanted Israel’s spiritual eyes opened to the
truth of the gospel of Christ that he even wished the impossible just to see
them be saved.
Paul knew that God had elected the Nation Israel by
calling Abram (later renamed Abraham) out of Ur of Chaldeans and making a
Nation from Abrahams loins, but that did not make every individual Israelite
sons of God only the Nation as a whole, for John the Baptist even reaffirmed
this truth when he said, Matthew 3:7-9 But
when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said
to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore
bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We
have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise
up children to Abraham from these stones.” NKJV Israel as a Nation was
privy to the Shekinah Glory of
God that none of the Gentile Nations ever experienced, and they were as a
Nation in Covenant with God (YAHWEH) through Abraham as we stated above, and
through the Nation of Israel did God give His Law (The Ten Commandments) from
the Mountain at Sinai, and the Nation of Israel as a whole was always in the
service of God while the pagan Nations were left to worship their idols or
satanic images, and finally the Nation of Israel was the one to receive the
Messiah or Savior of the World and all the other promises God (YAHWEH) made in
Covenant with Abraham, as our Lord Jesus said, John 8:56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see
My day, and he saw it and was glad.” NKJV Paul now knew with
certainty that despite all of these wonderful truths that pertain to the Nation
as a whole that it mattered nothing if they persisted and continued in their
rejection of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah for He is the fulfillment of
all those things and even the Patriarch Abraham was privileged to see Christ
day and rejoice in it for his people.
Psalms 119:136 Rivers of water run down from my
eyes, Because men do not keep Your law. NKJV
Isaiah 53:1 Who has believed our report? And to
whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? NKJV
“He would be willing to
undergo the greatest misery to do them good. Love is apt to be thus bold, and
venturous, and self-denying. Because the glory of God’s grace in the salvation
of many is to be preferred before the welfare and happiness of a single person,
Paul, if they were put in competition, would be content to forego all his own
happiness to purchase theirs.” Matthew Henry
“Anyone who has wet his
or her pillow case on many occasions praying for loved ones living in sin and
rebellion far from our Lord Jesus Christ knows exactly the anguish expressed by
the great Apostle Paul in Romans 9:1-2.”
Clifford D. Tate, Sr.
If you do not
know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your
heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus,
I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You
shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead
proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my
sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my
life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...Sincerely in Christ,
Author
of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and
Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into
Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s
Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod,
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Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…
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