30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written: “See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” ~ Romans 9:30-33
Today, we come to the end of our study of Romans 9, which centers on Israel's Past. In today's passage, the Apostle Paul addresses the question: How can the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ be true if God's chosen people, the Jews, do not believe it? Romans 9 chronicles all that God did in the past for Israel to position them to believe in the One of whom the Law and the Prophets spoke, the Lord Jesus Christ. This kind of faith causes one to be defined by the God of the Bible. However, just as Adam and Eve while in the Garden of Eden, Israel by and large, rejected God and His definition for their lives. And so, Romans 9-11 is an apologetic for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In v.30-31 of today’s passage we read, “30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal.”
In this passage, the Apostle illustrates what he taught in Romans 4, a right standing before God comes only through faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. You will remember that before Abraham was a Jew, he was a Gentile from southern Iraq. And, as was the case with him, there is a way we can tell if we are being drawn by the Holy Spirit to place faith in the Lord Jesus or if we are being permitted to remain condemned in our sin.
From the beginning of time we have seen this tug of war between the will of man and the will of God. If we have come to the end of ourselves, we will be postured to consider not only the existence of God, but, we will also entertain the vital questions about life and eternity that possibly causes us to pursue a personal relationship with God for ourselves. For those who are not being pursued by the Holy Spirit, they will be blinded by their own arrogance and they will not come to faith in the Lord Jesus despite all of the biblical evidence pointing to the Lord Jesus as the Messiah.
In Romans 5, the Apostle Paul reminded us that the Law of Moses came from God to sinful man in order to magnify the fact that fallen man needs a Savior. The Law does not and will not solve man’s sin problem. This is the lesson that unbelieving Israel failed to garner. As a result, they did not see their need for a Savior and they did not recognize their Messiah when He came. The Jews wrongly tried to remedy their sin problem through their good behavior. They failed to recognize they needed intervention from God. They failed to see that it is the God of the Bible alone who can and has remedied our need for salvation. It was the God of the Bible, through His Son, who crossed the great chasm created by our sin in order to redeem us from eternal damnation.
In v.32-33 of today’s passage we read, “32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written: 'See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall, and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.'”
The Jews pursued righteousness through the means of the self which is the essence of sin. When we are drawn by the Holy Spirit, we will be defined by the stone, the Lord Jesus Christ. That is if the drawing of the Holy Spirit leads us to place our faith in the Lord Jesus. Mankind has one of two choices regarding this stone: we can stumble over Him, or we can establish our existence on Him. The Jews pursued their own salvation on the basis of
themselves, relying upon their own definition of how life should be, causing them to stumble over the very One who came to save them from themselves.
In v.33 of today’s passage, the Apostle quoted Isaiah 28:16 which describes the Rock of salvation for all who are willing enough to believe in Him as our God and Savior. Those who look to Him find eternal life in Him. However, to those who reject Him, He is a stumbling stone who is in their way. The Jews were so self absorbed in their own virtues that they never noticed God's gift of salvation right in front of them. To those who rely on themselves they find Him in their way. To those who trust in Him they find He is the Way.
This passage ends with: “the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.” A better translation of this sentence is: “the one who believes in him will not be fearful."
In the Garden of Eden, sin corrupted our fear of the Lord, turning our awe of God into terror before Him. As a result, we turned what was supposed to be worship of God into the worship of the self. Now, our human predicament is dire because we’ve rebelled against the only One who can remedy our problem. Like most of Israel, we have wrongly crowned ourselves as little sovereigns, and discovered we’re terribly inadequate for the task. But, those who believe in the Lord Jesus as Savior have no reason to fear because on His cross, He has overcome everything that causes us to fear, even our inadequate selves. This truly gets at the root of our salvation, being rescued from the self that was deceived into believing we can be our own gods. This self was deceived into believing that God is not good and He is not our answer. This is why the Lord Jesus came, to reveal the heart of the Heavenly Father and that He can be trusted.
