Why have the Jews not believed?

1 I tell you sincerely in Christ, and my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit that I am not lying:

2 I have great sadness and constant anguish for the Jews.

3 I would even desire that I myself suffer the curse of being cut off from Christ, instead of my brethren: I mean my own people, my kin.

4 They are Israelites whom God adopted, and on them rests his Glory. Theirs are the covenants, the Law, the worship and the promises of God.

5 They are descendants of the Patriarchs and from their race Christ was born, he who as God is above all distinctions. Blessed be He forever and ever: Amen!

6 We cannot say that the promise of God has failed. For not all Israelites belong to Israel.

7 And not because they are of the race of Abraham are they all his children, for it was said to him: The children of Isaac will be called your descend ants.

8 This means that the children of God are not identified with the race of Abraham, but only with the children born to him because of the promise of God.

9 To such a promise this text refers: I shall return about this time and Sarah will have a son.

10 And listen: Rebecca, the wife of our father Isaac, became pregnant,

11 and before the twins were born, or had done anything right or wrong, in order that God��s purpose of election might continue,

12 not on the merits but of who is called, she was told: The elder will serve the younger,

13 as the Scripture says: I chose Jacob and rejected Esau.
God is not unjust

14 Shall we say that God is unjust? Of course not.

15 However God said to Moses: I shall forgive whom I forgive and have pity on whom I have pity.

16 So what is important is not that we worry or hurry, but that God has com passion.

17 And he says in Scripture to Pha raoh: I made you Pharaoh to show my power in you, and for the whole world to know my name.

18 And so God takes pity on whom he wishes, and hardens the heart of whom soever he wishes.

19 Maybe you say: ��Why then does God complain, if it is impossible to evade his decision?��

20 But you, my friend, who are you to call God to ac count? Should the clay pot say to its maker: Why did you make me like this?

21 Is it not up to the potter to make from the same clay a vessel for beauty and a vessel for menial use?

22 Thus God endures very patiently vessels that deserve his wrath, fit to be broken, and through them he wants to show his wrath and the extent of his power.

23 But he also wants to show the riches of his Glory in others, in vessels of mercy prepared for glory.

24 And he called us, not only from among the Jews, but from among the pagans, too,

25 as he said through the prophet Hosea: I will call ��my people�� those that were not my people, and ��my beloved�� the one who was not beloved.

26 And in the same place where they were told: ��You are not my people,�� they will be called children of the living God.

27 With regard to Israel, Isaiah proclaims: Even if the Israelites are as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a few will be saved.

28 This is a matter that the Lord will settle in Israel without fail or delay.

29 Isaiah also announced: If the Almighty Lord had not left us some descendants, we would have become like Sodom and similar to Gomorrah.

30 What are we saying, then? That the pagans who were not aiming at true righteousness found it (I speak of righteousness through faith);

31 while Israel, striving to observe a law of righteousness, lost the purpose of the Law.

32 Why? Because they relied on the observance of the Law, not on faith. And they stumbled over the stumbling stone (Christ),

33 as it was said: Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall; but whoever relies on him will not be deceived.

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Comments Letter to the Romans, Chapter 9

• 9.1 Paul, being a Jew, shares the worries of the few Jews who have believed in Christ. Why did the chosen people not recognize their Savior? If they were a chosen nation, why were so few selected?

It is the same worry of Catholic families when their children do not go to church or when teenagers declare they have lost their faith. It is the same uneasiness we feel in the course of a mission: those who habitually go to church are perhaps the hardest to lead to conversion and are the ones that most obstruct the evangelization of outsiders.

Faith is not transmitted in heritage from father to son, mother to daughter. There have certainly been times and cultural systems where a whole nation followed the same religion and apparently shared the same faith. The Book of the Acts shows how on several occasions the conversion of the head of the family brought about the baptism of the whole household (Acts 11:14; 16:33). Faith however will always be a grace of God. In our days people have acquired complete autonomy and live in a world where all beliefs meet: faith can no longer be a family possession.

• 14. In this paragraph, Paul already anticipates the objection: ��If God calls whomever he wishes, will our act of faith really be free?�� (v. 19). This is and will always be a mystery. Paul does not intend to explain this, but asserts that God grants to whomever he wishes the grace of coming to Christ (see John 6:44). The experience of his conversion in which God took his freedom by force, as he does with the great prophets, brings him to use very strong words which seem to negate our freedom, especially in v. 22 which can be translated more strongly as: ��if God endured with pa tience vessels prepared to be broken.��

We have two observations on this:

Paul uses Old Testament texts in which God speaks of saving or destroying the people of Israel (v. 27), of loving Israel, giving it good land, and of giving poor land to the people of Esau or Edom (v. 13), of making Pharaoh more stubborn to bring him to defeat (v. 17). All these are problems of collective failures or salvation, at the level of history, which Paul employs to clarify a historical fact: a great majority of the Jewish people did not recognize Christ. It would be very risky to draw from these conclusions about the responsibility of those who believe and those who do not. We will fall into a still greater confusion if we would apply this text, as others have done, to individual salvation, and discuss about those who will go to heaven and those who will be condemned. It is clear that this question has nothing to do with the argument of Paul: to know God is a grace which God gives to whomever he wills, but he surely gives other graces that other people be saved without knowing Christ.

Then we take note that all speakers, including Paul, say at times words that are somewhat excessive which will be clarified later by showing other aspects of the same reality. We ought to see other words of Scripture to re-establish the balance. If God calls us to a relationship of love and faithfulness with him (Hos 2:21), it is precisely because we are free and responsible (Sir 15:14). If God has destined someone for hell, how could he call him and demand that he live a holy life? It would be the cruelest of jokes.

PREDESTINATION

We must not confuse two different ideas of predestination.
For Paul, predestination refers to the loving plan of God from the very beginning. It was then that God decided how to lavish on each of us the riches of his love through his Son. See commentary on Ephesians 1:5.

It was not the same for the peo ple of the sixteenth century, like Luther, Calvin and many Catho lic theologians with them. They thought that God created man without worrying about his possible sin or providing for the coming of Christ. As a result of Adam��s sin, the Justice of God condemned all his descendants to hell. Then the Mercy of God decided to save some of them by sending Je sus. This predestination after the sin would mean that no one could escape this blessing or this curse of God.

Paul, speaking of predestination, only praised God for his over flowing love. They, instead, were obsessed by concern for their own salvation, thinking of a whimsical God who perhaps had destined them to hell. Luther escaped from this obsession by stressing the merciful Jesus more than a frightening God.

In that same despairing century our Lord Jesus made several apparitions asking people to honor his Sacred Heart, so reminding us that he was only love for us. It is not ��Jesus�� only who is a loving God. The Father who predestines us is love just as his Son is love.

Speaking of predestination, we say:

�C God, who is not controlled by time, has no before or after. He sees and determines at the same time the beginning and the end for each of us. No life fails because of the negligence or bad faith of God (Rom 8:28; James 1:13). No one can prevent his saving plans (Rom 8:37).

�C Our salvation is a gift of God. No one can believe and please God unless he has been called (Rom 11:5; Phil 2:13). No one is to be proud of his merits or demand a reward (Eph 2:9; Phil 3:9).

�C God is the one who works ev erything in us, as long as we open ourselves to his action. Those who refuse to be re ceptive are responsible for their own condemnation. The Church therefore speaks of ��predestination�� to express this saving work; but she has never spoken of predestination with regard to hell. Compare Matthew 25:34, the king dom prepared for you, with 25:41, the fire reserved for the Devil.

Only a few will be saved (v. 27). Jews, who have believed in Christ, instead of complaining, should give thanks to God for having called them. God saves the world by means of small groups and, even in the Church, not many people take the Gospel seriously: because this is also a grace of God.

Now Paul explains why the Jews lost the purpose of the Law (v. 31). They wanted to become holy relying on their own efforts. In this, some Christians today resemble them. They feel quite sure of their actions and are content with their lives. This presumption prevents them from seeing themselves as sinners.

They try to achieve their own perfection (v. 3). Many Christians likewise would like to come to God with hands full when, in fact, Christ invites us just to receive. In this way we receive the sacraments, not because we are worthy, but by extending our open hands like beggars.