Commentary - Romans 9:30-33

Bird's-eye view

In these closing verses of Romans 9, the apostle Paul brings his soaring argument concerning God's sovereign election to ground level. He anticipates the sputtering objections of his readers and answers them with a stunning, real-world paradox. The Gentiles, who weren't even in the race, have crossed the finish line and received the prize of righteousness. Meanwhile Israel, which was running hard on the track of the law, not only lost the race but tripped and fell disastrously. Why? Paul's answer is devastatingly simple and lies at the heart of the entire gospel. Israel was running in the wrong way, for the wrong reason. They sought to establish their own righteousness through sheer effort, through works, while the Gentiles simply received a righteousness from God by faith.

The entire issue hinges on the identity of Jesus Christ. He is the "stumbling stone" that God has placed in Zion. For those who approach God on the basis of their own performance, heritage, or effort, Christ is an obstacle and an offense. He gets in the way of their self-congratulatory projects. But for those who abandon all pretense and simply trust in Him, He is the foundation of an unshakeable and shameless salvation. This passage, therefore, is the pivot point where the doctrine of sovereign election meets the practical reality of how a man is actually saved: not by running harder, but by falling in surrender onto the Rock.

Outline

Context In Romans

This section serves as the conclusion and summary of Paul's argument in Romans 9. Having established God's absolute sovereignty in choosing a people for Himself, regardless of ethnicity or works ("not all Israel is Israel"), Paul now addresses the practical outworking of this reality in history. How is it that the majority of ethnic Israel has missed the Messiah, while multitudes of Gentiles are entering the kingdom? This passage provides the answer, which is not a contradiction of divine sovereignty but rather the explanation of the human means through which that sovereignty operates. Israel's failure was not arbitrary; it was a failure of faith. This sets the stage for chapter 10, where Paul will elaborate further on the nature of this righteousness that comes by faith and is available to all, Jew and Gentile, who call upon the name of the Lord. The "stumbling stone" of chapter 9 becomes the object of saving confession in chapter 10.

Key Issues

The Great Reversal

One of the central themes of the Bible is God's tendency to overturn the expectations of men. The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. The barren woman has more children than the one who is married. The younger son receives the blessing over the older. And here, in Romans 9, we see the ultimate reversal. The Gentiles, who were "strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Eph. 2:12), have stumbled into a righteousness they weren't even looking for. And Israel, the recipient of the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises, has stumbled over their own Messiah.

This is not a cosmic accident. It is a divine design intended to strip away all human pride and boasting. If salvation came to the people who were trying the hardest, who had the best pedigree, and who were the most religious, then salvation would be seen as a human achievement. But God has ordained that salvation comes as a sheer gift to the undeserving. The Gentiles received it precisely because they had nothing to offer. They were spiritual beggars who were surprised by an unearned feast. Israel, on the other hand, was trying to earn their ticket to the feast by working in the kitchen, and in their frantic efforts, they tripped over the Host of the banquet Himself.

Verse by Verse Commentary

30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, laid hold of righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith;

Paul begins with a rhetorical question, a device he uses throughout Romans to anticipate and answer objections. "What shall we say then?" means, "What is the logical conclusion of the argument I have just made about God's sovereign election?" The conclusion is a paradox that would have been deeply offensive to his Jewish audience. The Gentiles, who were not engaged in a quest for righteousness, have obtained it. They weren't running a spiritual race. They were, from a covenantal perspective, sitting on the side of the road, minding their own pagan business. And yet, righteousness was given to them. Paul immediately qualifies what kind of righteousness this is: it is the righteousness which is by faith. It is not an earned righteousness, but a received righteousness. It is a gift apprehended by the empty hands of faith.

31 but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not attain that law.

Here is the other side of the paradox. In stark contrast to the Gentiles, Israel was passionately pursuing righteousness. They had a "law of righteousness", the Torah, which was their track, their rulebook, their entire focus. They were zealous, they were active, they were striving. And yet, for all their running, they "did not attain" their goal. They failed. This is a crucial point. Israel's problem was not laziness or apathy; it was the direction and nature of their zeal. They were trying to build a tower to heaven using the bricks of their own obedience, and they failed to realize that God had already provided a stairway from heaven down to them.

32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,

Paul asks the obvious and critical question: "Why?" Why did the diligent fail and the idle succeed? The answer is the pivot upon which the entire gospel turns. Israel pursued righteousness, but they did it in the wrong way. They pursued it not "by faith," but "as though it were by works." They treated the law not as a guide that pointed them to their need for a Savior, but as a ladder they could climb to God on their own power. Their pursuit was based on human achievement, on performance, on doing. Faith, by contrast, is based on trusting what God has done.

Because their pursuit was based on works, they inevitably "stumbled over the stumbling stone." When you are running with your head down, focused on your own feet and your own effort, you are bound to trip over something you don't see. And what they didn't see, what they tripped over, was the very object of faith: Jesus Christ.

33 just as it is written, “BEHOLD, I AM LAYING IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND THE ONE WHO BELIEVES UPON HIM WILL NOT BE PUT TO SHAME.”

As is his custom, Paul anchors his argument in the Old Testament Scriptures, showing that this great reversal was not a divine afterthought but part of God's eternal plan. He weaves together two prophetic texts, Isaiah 28:16 and Isaiah 8:14. God Himself has placed this stone in Zion, at the very center of Israel's life and worship. This stone has a dual function. For those who approach it with pride and self-reliance, it is a "stone of stumbling and a rock of offense." Christ is offensive to the self-righteous. The idea that we cannot save ourselves, that our best efforts are filthy rags, that we must depend entirely on the work of another, this is an affront to fallen human nature. But for "the one who believes upon him," that very same stone is the foundation of all security. The one who trusts in Christ "will not be put to shame." On the great day of judgment, when all human works are revealed to be a foundation of sand, the one who has built his life on the rock of Christ will stand secure, without shame, vindicated by God.

Application

The fundamental error of first-century Israel is the default setting of the human heart in every century. The temptation to pursue righteousness "as though it were by works" is alive and well in the church today. It is the native religion of mankind. This religion can take many forms. It can be the gross legalism of trying to earn God's favor by a checklist of dos and don'ts. It can also be a more subtle legalism, where we trust in our sound doctrine, our Reformed bona fides, our cultural engagement, or our moral efforts to secure our standing before God.

This passage forces us to ask a diagnostic question: Is Jesus Christ our foundation, or is He our stumbling block? If the gospel of free grace in Christ feels like a threat to our spiritual project, if it seems too easy, if we feel the need to add our own efforts to it as a kind of safety measure, then we are in danger of stumbling over the stone. But if the gospel of grace is our only hope, our only plea, and our only confidence, then we have found the rock that cannot be shaken.

The application is to believe. It is to stop pursuing, striving, and trying to attain, and to start resting, trusting, and receiving. It is to confess that we are the Gentiles who were not pursuing righteousness and to lay hold of the perfect righteousness of Christ that is given freely by faith. For the one who does this, who abandons his own efforts and falls upon this stone, God makes a glorious promise: he will never, ever be put to shame.