For a more careful execution of this topic refer to my Romans series at The Bible Archive. My main point will be this: that the Gospel winds up being a practical help that can be used to cure any form of boasting evidenced in cynicism, pharisaicism and judgmentalism. To prove this, I’ll focus on Paul’s argumentation in Romans.
This post is home to my study in Romans.
An overview of various Potter texts throughout the Old Testament to see the sources Paul was looking at and either directly alluding to, combining, or using in a completely new way.
Romans 9:1-18 is (by common consent) a rough spot. Some go in with theological girding in place and a skewed reading is bound to occur while others go in thinking they have to walk away convinced with Something because of the foreboding rumblings in the Christian atmosphere way above them. People might look at my (rather Paul’s) Pharaoh versus Israel model and think that Israel was eternally saved and Pharaoh eternally damned from the get-go. I beg to differ.
We’re considering God’s righteousness and seeing how it works with mercy specifically in the case of the Jews. Thus far Paul impressed on us his sorrow that the Jews are not presently believers of the revealed Christ. Paul has been showing us how important a people they truly are and has taken us through history showing how and why God’s Word of Promise was established. We saw how they were kept from Edom’s fate only by God’s mercy.