God

So who will bring a charge against God’s chosen people? Certainly not God — he is the one who causes them to be considered righteous!

Who punishes them? Certainly not the Messiah Yeshua, who died and — more than that — has been raised, is at the right hand of God and is actually pleading on our behalf!

neither powers above nor powers below, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which comes to us through the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.

the people of Isra’el! They were made God’s children, the Sh’khinah has been with them, the covenants are theirs, likewise the giving of the Torah, the Temple service and the promises;

the Patriarchs are theirs; and from them, as far as his physical descent is concerned, came the Messiah, who is over all. Praised be Adonai for ever! Amen.

But the present condition of Isra’el does not mean that the Word of God has failed. For not everyone from Isra’el is truly part of Isra’el;

In other words, it is not the physical children who are children of God, but the children the promise refers to who are considered seed.

and before they were born, before they had done anything at all, either good or bad (so that God’s plan might remain a matter of his sovereign choice, not dependent on what they did, but on God, who does the calling),

This accords with where it is written, “Ya‘akov I loved, but Esav I hated.”

So are we to say, “It is unjust for God to do this”? Heaven forbid!

For to Moshe he says, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will pity whom I pity.”

Thus it doesn’t depend on human desires or efforts, but on God, who has mercy.

For the Tanakh says to Pharaoh, “It is for this very reason that I raised you up, so that in connection with you I might demonstrate my power, so that my name might be known throughout the world.”

So then, he has mercy on whom he wants, and he hardens whom he wants.

Who are you, a mere human being, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me this way?”

Now what if God, even though he was quite willing to demonstrate his anger and make known his power, patiently put up with people who deserved punishment and were ripe for destruction?

What if he did this in order to make known the riches of his glory to those who are the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory —

that is, to us, whom he called not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles?

As indeed he says in Hoshea, “Those who were not my people I will call my people; her who was not loved I will call loved;

and in the very place where they were told, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called sons of the living God!”

For Adonai will fulfill his word on the earth with certainty and without delay.”

As the Tanakh puts it, “Look, I am laying in Tziyon a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will trip them up. But he who rests his trust on it will not be humiliated.”

Brothers, my heart’s deepest desire and my prayer to God for Isra’el is for their salvation;

for I can testify to their zeal for God. But it is not based on correct understanding;

for, since they are unaware of God’s way of making people righteous and instead seek to set up their own, they have not submitted themselves to God’s way of making people righteous.