I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Romans 9:1-5
This will be the last Example of Paul … a couple new series coming up.
For many, this is one of the most disturbing passages of scripture. Understandably so.
Only two people in the scripture express such a desperate emotion. First we have Moses. While God was about to get rid of the whole nation of Israel and make a new chosen people out of Moses, Moses begs God to have mercy on Israel. He even tells God to “write my name out of your book,” which many argue isn’t a true rejection of salvation, but nonetheless, seems pretty extreme to me. Of course, God does have mercy and repents of His plan to wipe Israel from the face of the earth.
Here in Romans, we have Paul the Apostle, the messenger of the Gospel to the Gentiles, lamenting over his own people, the Jews. He is so distraught, he even testifies that he COULD wish himself accursed so they could be saved.
Paul was saddened by the fact that the chosen people had rejected the savior that came through their line. Although many of the early Christians were Jews, the majority of the Jewish nation had rejected Jesus. This was tragic to Paul, who understood more than most both the rejection and salvation of Jesus.
Therefore, it were possible, he would give up his own salvation so that a whole people could know Jesus.
This is deep compassion. Most of us understand loving and caring deeply for our own people, whether racially or otherwise. We may even understand giving our physical lives for a cause. But to give up our eternal destiny, as well?
Only Jesus was ever able to experience this in reality. In choosing to do His Father’s will and lay His life on the cross, He was also choosing to take on the sin of the world, thereby taking on the full wrath of God. As the sun went black and God turned His back on His only Son, Jesus cried out, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” Only Jesus has felt the result of choosing to give up His righteous, holy place for others. Because Christ acted out of obedience, Jesus also enjoyed His joy and reward from the Father.
And because Jesus became this ultimate sacrifice, we cannot. Hence, Paul uses the word COULD to describe his deep compassion for others. This wasn’t just flight of fancy, either. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit bore witness to the truth of his statement.
In the sense of giving up our salvation, Jesus’ sacrifice was enough … more than enough. We can partake in His suffering and sacrifice on one level, even the giving up of our own physical lives for others, as we should, but we can never substitute our salvation for another, even a whole group.
But we can wish. This is the compassion of Christ in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If it is genuine, this compassion for others is an expression of our transformation into being more like Christ. This is the level Paul attained. He was willing not just to give up his own life, but even his own salvation, if it were possible, in order to see the salvation of others.
The gap between Paul’s compassion for others and my own is the Grand Canyon. If we were truly even like Paul, as he was like Christ, our compassion for the lost would routinely overwhelm us to tears. Remember how Christ wept for Jerusalem? When is the last time you wept for the lost, in any sense? Oh, Christians are great at either telling people they are sinners or just shrugging their shoulders in utter apathy, but we are deficient in our compassion for the lost.
Remember Jesus was considered a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” If the Church is His Body, should we not also weep for the eternal condition of those around us? The fact that we don’t means one of two things: either we aren’t saved ourselves or we don’t know God well enough to even imagine what it would be like without His grace. I’m not sure there’s much of a difference, to be honest.
Maybe instead of Christian comedians we should have professional lamenters, people whose job it is to lead the Church to tears, to share in God’s deep heart.
Actually, we do. They are the true prophets. You’ll just probably never really hear about them or know one in our American Christian culture.
Peace.