Romans 9: Reason for Wrath

In answering the questions raised in Romans 9 I want to back up a little at first. Every passage in Scripture needs to be read in context, difficult passages even more so. Many people find Romans 9 to be a difficult passage (personally I think 9-11 are the same thought, if not 1-11). That is because what is read in chapter 9 seems to go against so much of the rest of the old and new testament revelation of God’s character.

If you have people read Scripture, or even just read the book of Romans, and then ask them, “What is the main theme?” I would be shocked if they answered, “God designs some people to display His wrath so that His mercy may be understood.” Paul would be shocked too.
When drawing conclusions on passages of Scripture I like to see what conclusions the author makes himself. Romans 12 gives us Paul’s conclusion to the first 11 chapters. He says, “Therefore, in view of God’s mercy.” He did not say in view of God’s election or God’s wrath, but in view of God’s mercy. In fact God’s mercy is one of the over-arching themes of Scripture, and it is in particular point here in Romans for a specific reason.

Some people believed (and taught) that birthright carried more weight than belief in whether or not someone received mercy from God. Being a Jew by birth was more important that believing in Christ on the cross in regards to acquiring righteousness. Paul began answering that issue in Romans chapter 4. He shows that even before the notion of Israel existed God imparted righteousness because of faith. Faith precedes both the law and the Jewish nation.

In chapter 9 Paul reveals that wrath exists outside grace not just outside the Jewish nation. In this he is reaffirming his previous point that belief carries more weight than birthright. His story of Jacob and Esau points to this specifically. The point is that God showed mercy to the one to which mercy was not expected; and the one who expected mercy (due to his birthright) found wrath instead.

Why did that happen? Because God chose to make it that way is the quick and unsatisfying answer. (Yet the answer we must accept, just as Paul reminds us.) Paul expands the answer in 9:30-33 when he says that some receive wrath because of their unbelief. This is where we begin to understand how wrath “reveals mercy” and how justice demands that God pour out His wrath on some Israelites. (It is important to note that Paul is speaking specifically of God’s wrath upon the Jewish nation in this passage.)

The reason he states is that those Israelites had attempted to gain righteousness by the law and God says it comes through faith. Christ on the cross is the message of mercy, and they rejected that message. It would be unjust for God to grant them mercy, because in doing so He would make the cross worthless.

When God reveals His wrath on the unbelieving Jews it proves that mercy is available to the Gentiles. Because, if birthright were enough to attain righteousness then the promise is meaningless (chapter 4). But, if birthright is not enough, then there is room for belief, and God has made that available to all. Not everyone can be a genetic child of Abraham, but everyone can be a child of the promise.

This is the point Paul makes in verse 32 when he concludes, “Why is all of this so? Why do some receive wrath instead of mercy? Because they pursued it (mercy) not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the ‘stumbling stone’,” that is Christ on the cross.